Aberrance
by nprose
Summary: Pre-, during, & post Skyfall. Q is kidnapped, and forced into unsavory work before MI6 finds him and he finds himself drawn to one of them.
1. Abduction

The wiry young man succeeded in making only a muffled noise as he struggled against the bulky aggressor pinning his slim frame to the twin bed. He had been awoken with a jolt to calloused, large hands around his delicate throat, and had immediately tried to make some kind of sound. For his troubles, rough fingers covered his mouth, a voice sore from disuse trying frantically to reach out with its scratchy sound to no effect. The cold sweat had started not seconds later, and the room began to stink of adrenaline and fear. An old mug of Earl Grey was knocked from the nightstand as he struggled, and the over steeped tea fell to the nearly stainless cream rug. The brunette's hastily made bed did not even creak beneath him as he attempted to fight back and free himself. There was only so much he could do at 140 pounds, and it wasn't enough to faze his attacker. There was a strange hot pinch of pain at the base of his neck and then cold, numb cold as the substance that was being injected into his system spread rapidly with the frantic beating of his strung-out heart. The young man was intelligent, almost frightfully so, and his brain in this moment of panic managed to deduce his current state- that of being kidnapped. His eyes frantically flit around, scanning his familiar gray walls and Spartan surroundings for something he could use, and finally settling on the face of his attacker. His vision was awful, but he was nearsighted and saw the monster of a man pushing him down, one hand on his bony shoulder. The weight became painful, and the bone of his upper arm gave way with a sickening gunshot _crack_. The young man tried to move, or scream, but he was in the midst of the abduction and could do nothing about it as the tranquilizer spread its icy tendrils across his back and down his chest, his thought slowing and becoming more and more muddled as he inched closer to unconsciousness. He was aware of the twitching of his own fingers and his abductor's too-hot breath, reeking of drugs, in his face as he fought to stay awake. The pain from his shoulder and ice spreading through his body became far too much for the young man and black crept in from the corners of his vision before hallucinations could.

The drug-fuelled dreams of the thin brunet were a strange kind of solace from what were to face him should he awake. He dreamt of his family, of things that were normal, before. These dreams were too false for pride. Then the real bled in, and then the monsters came, horrible disfigured things with too many eyes and not enough skin to hold in their organs, and screamed relentless torturous screams for far too long. When he lacked luck, these monsters would tear at his skin and his bones, snapping them all with the deathly cracking of a machine gun aimed blindly into a crowd. This ugly noise would echo through the dead silence left behind in the wake of the yells like the young man had walked into a monastery and screamed a vow of silence. It was senseless and terrifying to all within, though somehow belonged somewhere amidst all the confusion and havoc. Too much time was spent listening to these guttural, injured sounds and the unearthly echoing silence that followed, and the man who had been taken would not wake up exactly the same.

Instead shaky, gasping, twitching like an addict begging for a hit, on a floor stained with flaky dried liquid and congealing lifeblood. It stank, the smell hanging heavily in the air like silence after bad news. The smell was that of rotting meat, vomit, feces, and other various bodily fluids, as if they had all been left to mold then dry in the baking sun for a while. The shaking, starving man was choking on his own dried blood. He retched before his stomach realized that there was nothing left to purge. The brown hair on his head, which had once been neatly kept, was long and matted, and his normally clean-shaven pale face was rough with weeks' worth of beard growth. He looked up, his vision much less than perfect but able to discern the gray walls which for a second reminded him of home, the sparse one bedroom flat with plain walls, a plain exterior, and plain interior. There was nothing remarkable about the flat, rather the man inhabiting it. He was an extraordinary creature, but currently in a situation that he'd never imagined himself being in. His arm sent pain throughout his entire body as he realized that the break had set in entirely the wrong way. It left his arm completely useless. Somehow managing to be detached, his brain calmly observed that it would have to be re-broken to set properly, a fact which would normally have turned the stomach of the man on the ground. His stomach had been turned enough in those few first disgusting seconds of consciousness, though, and skimmed over this particular fact like it was nothing. It did not take long of these oddly detached realizations before exhaustion began to conquer him, and he, after only a few minutes of being awake, went right back under again.

Even his dreams were sluggish this time. He moved through time like there was some invisible force weighing on him, dragging him down without being obvious to anyone else, like he and he alone were moving through some sort of thick gel. He began to suffocate as the substance forced its way down his throat and settled after sloshing down his esophagus into his lungs. There was a sensation of pure terror and the dream began to morph into the mindless screaming again. It was only years after this trauma did the young man realize who had been screaming the entire time- himself.

He began to hear voices in his dreams. Often they were low and rumbling, at the very bottom of the scale. Soon those deep rough voices solidified into one. He pictured in his mind a large, tall man with a knife scar across his neck and watery, pale colored eyes with no depth and no personality. He took the character of the hired muscle. After hearing this man's voice for so long, but never really hearing words, a high-pitched, unpleasant voice intruded into the captive's consciousness. The voice of a thin, displeased woman it became, a woman who always found the flaw in a situation. Someone with badly dyed hair and bony fingers, whose intelligence was marginally higher than that of the muscle but could still be compared to that of an inanimate object. She came more and more often, and with her something else came, a strange release. The pain was slowly ebbing away. The progress was so slow it was nearly unnoticeable, but it was enough for the captive to realize over time that it was for some reason going away. With the pain went what pathetic scraps of lucidity hung on. The voices were gone for quite some time.

What before were dreams were now just shapeless, somehow loud, blobs and waves of color, not unlike the spots in one's vision after looking too long at a bright light. Loud noises and harsh lights, which would normally garner outburst, were dulled, toyed with by his less than fully functioning brain. His other senses were as good as missing. His sense of smell was completely absent, and the shell of his mind where his not truly conscious state was kept did not register touch. Taste was missing as well, almost as if it had never really been there. These odd dreams, or hallucinations, went on for an imperceptible period of time. He never quite understood the passage of time while he was under. After a while had passed, or so it seemed, the dreams became less and less vibrant, and he went from possibly unconscious hallucinations to dark, normal sleep.

When he truly awoke he was finally aware of his surroundings. His vision was blurred, as his glasses were probably still at his flat, resting neatly in the case as they did every night. He could at least discern the concrete walls and floor of the room enclosing him, and deduced that he was likely underground. The room was square and gray, the concrete unpainted, and he vaguely remembered the first time he had awoken, but then observed more closely. It was a different room to the one he had first awoken in, as there was no smell in the air excepting a damp smell of basement and the metallic fog of his own blood. There was no visible door and he thought it must be to his side or behind him. He was lying down, though at a slight angle like a hospital bed. In fact, he might even be on a hospital bed, or something very similar. He felt a thin, uncomfortable mattress beneath him and the rigid frame beneath, the sheets not only a low thread count but also rough and probably not made of natural fibers. They scratched against his skin when he attempted to shift, and realized he was strapped down. The slight movement that there was caused raging pain up his arm. He remembered that it had broken and glanced over, fearing the worst. Instead of a horrible misplaced break like before, his arm had been set properly, maybe even professionally, and was in the right place for it to be healing. He came to the conclusion, from this and the fact that there was no food or waste to be seen, but he felt fine (despite the drugs), that he was receiving medical attention from someone.

Someone had been watching him, probably through a small camera that was invisible to he, with poor vision. He realized this as two blurry figures came into his sight. He recognized them immediately despite only knowing their voices. One figure was female, dark complexioned, wearing clothes that were too large and a displeased expression on her thin face. He couldn't see her perfectly, but she looked as if she might be pretty without the nasty look and terrible bowl hair cut. That was the extent of what he could see, but her face held evidence of a particularly bad case of teenage acne, as well as her left eye being set a few millimeters above her right. There was an ID card on a frayed lanyard around her neck that identified her with her picture and an alias, as well as a barcode. She held nothing and picked at her cuticles, which were all of different lengths. The second figure was a broad man with a dark, ugly tan over what had once been a smooth, light complexion. He had a scar through one eyebrow that hair did not grow through, and a nose that had been broken at least twice and healed badly both times. His hair was dark and cropped so close to his scalp that he might have just shaved his head a handful of days ago. He had muscle, almost too much of it, and he toed the line of grotesque. His hands were rough as a careless carpenter's, and his forearms and upper arms thick and veiny. There was a smudge of dark on his upper arm that suggested a large birthmark or a small tattoo. His fingernails were short, but looked as if they were picked to that length instead of being cut properly. The captive immediately recognized him as his abductor.

Oddly, he hardly felt fear, or anything at all, but this all began to change once the woman started to talk.

"We hear that you are technologically talented. This means that you'll be useful to us. You will cooperate, no matter the circumstances or the assignment. Failure to do so will result in no food or medical care. You're easily disposable." She had an accent that betrayed her as being from the United States, though it wasn't too thick. Fear started to course through him like another drug, something cold and evil rather than warm and comforting. She talked for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes. He was left to contemplate her words, drifting in and out of lightly drugged sleep for days.

His arm was beginning to heal, and the drugs almost completely out of his system despite weeks of repeated use. There was no feeling of addiction or dependence anywhere within him for whatever they had been constantly dripping into him, and he wondered about its peculiar absence. Usually drugs of that strength not only did damage to the brain of their user, but also left the recipient with twisted feelings of craving as the body shut down its dopamine production, almost as if favoring the drug for a hit of pleasure. The wiry brunet felt nothing of it, his head becoming clearer every day. Some of the effects remained, however, and the brunet's memory was not functioning at usual capacity. He remembered the briefing given to him by his abductors, or prison guards, but his brain rejected the exact words in favor of a general idea of what they had said.

_You will not hesitate to command death. You will be our puppet. Or you will die._

After leaving him to think about this for a good long while, they'd given him an old laptop to mess with, and some minor instructions. He felt sick to his stomach, twisted and easily used, but he carried them out to the letter, knowing that planting viruses and corrupting important data was not the same as directly causing death. He was still a victim, still with no personal effects or food besides disgusting slop and nondescript sweats which he would have instantly traded for a checkered shirt, cardigan, and his familiar glasses. He had no true freedom, and he knew that they watched him, but he felt slightly more normal.

He was beginning to enjoy the solid, real feeling of his fingers against metal again, and the sick twisted feeling in his gut was less intense than it had been. He had not yet been given a death assignment as threatened, but he feared it more with every waking second. He didn't think he was capable of ordering or orchestrating a death, no matter how detached he was from the situation. It felt almost surreal to him, in an entirely different fashion than the dreams had been. They had been liquid, organic, with no lines to contain them, and kept a feeling of odd warmth no matter the situation. This feeling now was sharp and edged, the cold of metal against skin, far too crisp to be a dream. His fingers kept faltering as he thought of the unreal he might be forced to make possible, the death of a government agent at his hands.


	2. Death and Liberation

His first assignment came within a week of his consciousness. It was simple, to break past some rudimentary firewalls and slip a kill order into a set of documents. All based in text- the young man would never see the blood and guts, the grim and often shocking reality that comes with death. It would have taken him mere hours to complete, but he thought about it for days, doing a little each day to look busy so the people holding him here in this ugly, gray cubicle of a cell would not pull their guns (for he was sure beyond any doubt that they existed, and even if they did not it would not take much effort for the bulky man to snap the technophile's neck) and shoot him right then and there. He mindlessly played with important-looking programs, always seeming much busier and less alert than he truly was. In reality, he paid very close attention to his captors and their reactions to him, as well as their emotions (which they hardly seemed to have, but the young man was observant and quickly picked up on small things) and the chance that he would be dead within the next hour, which stayed low most of the time. From the way the pair looked satisfied, he easily concluded that they knew nothing or next to nothing about computers. He could probably be fiddling around on a dinky little paint program made for kindergarteners and they would be happy. He knew he was valuable, and he exploited it, because he did not want to kill. Deceive, mislead, trip up, possibly, and these things he had done, but he would not mindlessly claim the life of another, whether he was behind glass or face to face with his intended victim.

He played around for an entire week before he was questioned about his assignment. He gave a carefully crafted neutral answer, including just enough jargon and complicated bullshit that they accepted like stupid dogs. He often caught himself smiling a little, thinking that he could fake his way out of the killing and maiming and evil that his captors wanted him to orchestrate, but somewhere he realized that it could not be done. Death for death, either he killed to their specifications or they would quickly and painfully kill him. There was nothing he could do besides stall and hope for the best, perhaps some kind of rescue, but it felt far-fetched. How could he possibly be important enough to spend that kind of time and resources on?

Even though it occasionally felt like a waste of time and a risk, he still stalled in completing the assignment, giving the same kind of wordy and meaningless answer he had the first time, this time complete with some sort of excuse about firewalls and password protected documents. He hoped, going against the sickness he felt as he lied, that they ate his bullshit with the same placidity as before, but he grew more and more anxious with each passing day.

He woke up one day to the tough plastic of a recently manufactured gun pressing against his forehead. The hired muscle from before gave him a knock on the head with it, deep and damaged sounding voice growling, "Do the fucking work now, boy, or it will be fun to see your big brain dripping out of your skull." He had a thick Northern accent and absolutely no signs of intelligence, but the technophile did not doubt that he now knew what to look for. They had gone to the brass, his current worst fear confirmed, and now he would have to quickly complete the task or he would be shot. He guessed that he would have no leeway the next time, and his hands began to shake as he pulled up what he needed and started his lethal work. He was all too aware that his actions would cause someone else's essential bodily fluids to drain out of them, and he was paler than usual, upset and somehow scared of doing his job wrong, even though he knew exactly what he was doing. In reality, the work was child's play, but the anxiety of his situation and his habit of stalling slowed him down, and hours facing the barrel of a gun feels like years staring into the face of death itself.

What he had feared and dreaded for so long took him less than three hours, and he showed the finished work to the gun-wielding thug so he would lower the gun. The plastic barrel had left a circular red welt on his skin, and he was shaking as he shut the laptop with a soft _snck_ of the magnets. He no longer wanted anything to do with a cold killing machine, be it the man's gun or his own computer. He laid down completely and fell asleep nearly instantly, though he was plagued with nonsensical dark dreams about slit throats and explosions. He slept for the better part of a day, still with no real sense of time, and woke up to another assignment, which he refused to do.

"I am not hired muscle. This is complicated work and you must give me time. I have a headache, allow me to rest," he said in a clipped tone with a dash of false confidence. Now that he had proved himself useful, if more so under direct threat of death, he felt that he had some leeway in his own doing. His voice was rough with disuse, and cracked slightly, but he had faked enough conviction to hopefully be successful. Surprisingly, the thug backed down and he was allowed rest before being assigned again, this time to set up and carry out an assassination, something that he would be directly controlling instead of commanding.

In the day and age of advanced technology, computers were everywhere, and if one was good enough, they could access many of them. The young man was indeed good and it took little effort to readjust life support or redirect vehicles. He worked quickly and efficiently to try and avoid the sick sense of guilt that he had, and the burning hatred that he felt for his abductors. He knew that they monitored him while he carried out an assignment, but he began to work on something else in the little free time that he had. He began to devise a program that would send messages en masse to important organizations with the information of people whose death he would be forced to command, and thus maybe some of them could be saved or hidden before the orders were carried out. He tried to be as detailed as possible, so the messages would at least be looked into instead of dismissed as harmless, or pranks. The messages also contained the location of the sender, and the technophile hoped that the receiving end of the messages would decide to look into the coordinates attached and find whoever was ordering the death of their agents. It was a long shot, but he worked on it whenever he can, wanting to retain some hope and some sense of connection to the world outside.

The more assignments that he carried out, the more detached he felt. The young man's morals were still strong, but somehow less in place as he carried out elaborate assassinations to stave off his own death. He felt less human.

He was beginning to scare himself.

He hesitated still, knots in his stomach forming whenever he received a new assignment. One in particular was especially hard, as he was interested in the target and decided to read his personnel file "to gather more useful information about the subject." She ended up to be a mother taking care of her two small children with her brother, readying for a civil partnership with her partner of twelve years. He felt incredibly disturbed, nausea churning deep in his gut. He did all he could to screw up the assignment, and make sure she would be avoided instead of hurt. He felt better after that, and tried to save as many as he could, but his pair of captors (or their brass) were monitoring him somehow, and he couldn't screw up too often or he felt he would be detected.

Another case in particular stood out to him, that of a man who was in Montenegro on an assignment for some British government agency. It seemed odd, out of place, as the target was to be spending most of his time in a casino. It didn't exactly sound like top secret government work to him, and he spent a while trying to get at his personnel file as well, but that one didn't come easy. He was supposed to set a couple of hired thugs hired by the casino's corrupt management to kill the government agent instead of muscling money from the rich players who cheated, and the poor ones who swindled the rich ones. It was interesting how easy it would have been, but he ended up falling asleep in the middle of looking for the personnel file and the job was never finished. Oddly, his captors never noticed, and he often wondered what had happened to the man he was supposed to be assigning death to.

What felt like weeks of this was nerve wracking. The worse and worse he felt, and the more detached he became the more useful he was. He was treated better with every passing day, but he hardly noticed. Ordering death became a full-time job. His hope drained away with the seconds, and the message he was sending became a memory distant in the back of his mind. They allowed him to shower and shave properly, and he felt more like himself for the first time in a while. He was unconsciously becoming used to his surroundings and condition, and he rarely reflected on it.

He awoke a few hours into sleep to a deep rumble that felt like it was shaking the entire building. In reality, it was the noise of many powerful engines purring as they approached the ugly suburban house, but his ears had become used to hearing less and less and had picked up on the sound quickly. He looked up and around his cell, the concrete room that kept him prisoner. He found his glasses, a near carbon copy of the old pair that he had bribed out of his captors, (because he knew his prescription by heart) and shoved them on, sitting up in the too-loose clothes on the hard bed. His curiosity had been piqued, and he moved over to the door to see if he could hear well. The clothes that were too large on him made the soft noise of fabric on fabric, and he ignored that noise, pressing his ear against the door. The rumbling had intensified.

Two sleek government cars had approached the house. They seemed out of place on the long street with the lone yellow house, with their glossy black coats of paint and buffed steel and chrome-plated bumpers. Their engines idled but it did not disguise the true power they held. Two men in fitted black suits stepped out from separate cars, glanced around to analyze the threat level, and approached the squat house. One was tall and light skinned, the other darker and a few inches shorter, but they had the same brown eyes, cropped dark hair, strong build, and icy demeanor. They knew what they were doing, and it would take them very little effort to achieve it. They were extremely quiet, and pulled their guns as they approached the house. One gently pushed in the door, seeing as it was a bit ajar already. He stepped cautiously inside, looking around to cover every base. He nodded to his partner, who followed and immediately went down the stairs that both could see. There were two silenced shots, and before either could react, both of the guards were shot in the calf. The muscle lashed out, going for his gun, but another shot served as a warning and embedded itself deep into the wall. He did not move after that, and the woman went without question. It took both of them to subdue the muscled man and secure him into a closet. As soon as they were done, one of them said in a clipped tone, "MI6, step away from the door."

He was hearing all the action from inside the concrete cell, and had absolutely no idea who was behind the door, or who had been victorious in the scuffle, before the voice at the door identified whomever it was as MI6. A deep feeling of relief rushed through the lanky brunet, and he scrambled to move away so whoever was on the other side of that door and the other end of the gun could have their way. The lock was done for after a single precisely aimed shot. He scrambled back into view and looked oddly shocked at the two professional-looking men, even though he knew that they were MI6. One of them identified him by name and told him to take the laptop, and to go with them. He quickly grabbed the scuffed-up computer from the ground under the bed and hurried to follow them. He was practically dragged up the creaky wooden stairs, and his eyes flitted all over the place, seeing the inside of the house where he had been kept prisoner for the first time. His brain catalogued the missing paintings on the walls, or the sun-damaged space around where they had hung. He ran his fingers over the edges of the peeling light blue wallpaper. There was so much more to this place than a tiny, foul-smelling basement, and he briefly wondered whom it had belonged to. He gripped the computer tightly with his left hand, already feeling a headache coming on with the much brighter light of the sun, as opposed to the artificial light of the bare bulbs of the basement which shone weakly and only when he wanted them to. It was a dramatic change and he squinted, nearly tripping over the top stair. One of the agents kept a firm hand on his arm and helped him up to the ground floor, where he was greeted with the sign of windows for the first time since he had been captured. The sight was nearly blinding to someone who had spent a long time underground in mostly low light. He felt the headache rapidly building then, and was glad for the tinted windows and dark interior of the government cars. The one in the other car took his laptop, and he gladly relaxed into the posh leather seat and enjoyed the car trip, falling at one point into a quiet, dreamless sleep, lulled and kept under by the purr of the engine.


	3. New Hire

"I suppose you know why you're here." The woman with the silver hair addressed him with a businesslike manner. Her suit was impeccable and fit her well, and a small silver and pearl brooch near the collar pulled her outfit together perfectly. They were in a spacious office overlooking the Thames, decorated in a very minimalist style, with the only true hint of personality being an ugly ceramic bulldog painted with the Union flag that sat on the broad wood desk. He briefly wondered where it had come from before deciding to counter her statement.

"No, actually, I haven't been informed." The man speaking was very different from when he had been kidnapped and kept for a month (which he had found out getting out of the government car- the date was precisely thirty days after he had been abducted) in a basement. He was primly dressed in a checked shirt and lavender tie, along with a light wool cardigan in a light gray that accented his pale green eyes. His pants fit him, and he was wearing socks and nice black leather shoes, all of which fit well. The watch on his wrist had leather in the same very dark brown as his now neatly trimmed mop of brown hair. He regarded her with a slight air of irritation, as he'd been waiting in the MI6 headquarters since noon, in that time learning that the agency had known about his kidnapping before it had even occurred, and done nothing to prevent it. Most people would be much more frustrated, but the young man was interested in their reasoning.

"You have been labeled as a person of interest. Specifically, we've been interested in hiring you based upon your technological ability. Usually Q, the head of our division of technology, would conduct this briefing, but we've come to you because he's dead."

She did not mince her words, and he appreciated that. "Why did you let them kidnap me, then?" he said with a slight bite in his voice. "I'm sure your agents are disposable, but a good technological genius is rather hard to come by. Certainly you wouldn't want anything to happen to me."

"We wanted you to know if you could handle it," she stated flatly. "When you work for MI6, an enemy wouldn't care which division you work in. Often you could be of more use to them than any field agent could." She didn't seem fazed in the least by the 'disposable agents' comment.

"As I learned. What happened to them, those who I was ordered to kill?"

"You assume we knew. You assume correctly. You've harmed no one. We knew about the goings-on down there all along."

He didn't let it show, but a feeling of immense relief flooded through him. He nodded.

"Come back in fifteen days. When you leave then, you will either have a job or memory problems. I suggest the first option."

He was escorted out into the streets of London, somewhat lost in thought. It was cloudy but not raining, the weather a bit windy and biting and he was glad he'd worn the cardigan. He ran his fingers through his hair and slowly walked to the nearest tube station, not keen on walking when it was breezy out. Cardigans were nice, but the wind went straight through them. He stepped down the stairs into the tube station, grime on the walls and an irritated ticket man. He bought his ticket quickly and caught the tube, not exactly comfortable being so close to other people in this kind of setting, but it worked. He considered his need for this instead of being able to take a cab, wondering if he should take the job or not.

Before the tube had reached his stop he had given it enough thought to make a decision, but he knew better than to go back and engage the woman with the simple nameplate of "M" in conversation again. He would wait it out and return as she said, in exactly fifteen days.

Fifteen days with only freelance work to do passed agonizingly slowly. He had been employed at a large software firm, but he became bored out of his mind working out of a cubicle with only simple things to do. He needed something that he could throw himself into, something that would harness his full potential and make use of all of his talent.

He had decided to take the job. Maybe government work would help him somehow, probably keep him busy anyway. Boredom was poison to someone with a high IQ.

The first day after the debrief was only his third day home after the abduction. His flat wasn't at all different, and it was simultaneously comforting and unnerving. The gray walls were far too reminiscent of the basement, and he called in a service, using the dregs of one savings account on a hotel for three nights. He chose a soft blue and a light brown that reminded him of milk chocolate, packed up, and headed off to the nearest chain hotel with a few things to do before he took a job with a government intelligence agency.

The first night at the hotel was uneventful, but he tried room service and discovered that he rather disliked sushi. He went out late and got himself a new laptop, rather than what he'd been working with earlier. It was much faster and would be able to handle the new job. Besides some clothes and jerry-rigged technology that he fiddled with in his free time, there wasn't much to take from the apartment. He decided that the less possessions, the better.

This theory caved a little when he went out after a late breakfast on the second day to buy himself some sharp clothes, and specifically a suit. There was a nice little shop three streets down from the hotel that stank of hole-in-the-wall and did the finest tailoring either side of the International Date Line.

He walked the few blocks that it took, enjoying some rare London sun. He pushed open the door, and a small silver bell chimed his entrance to the old man behind the polished mahogany counter on the far wall. The shop was small, but had high ceilings, and it reeked of class and grandeur with its dark wood and racks of fabrics and ties in only the finest materials. Here, everything was made to order.

The old man regarded him curiously. He obviously didn't see many men as young and fair as the new customer was. He looked like a kid fresh out of college, instead of the salt-and-pepper haired clients of usual with the heavy rings who gave off a rich aura everywhere they went. He himself was well into his eighties and had seen a lifetime of the stinking rich types, occasionally a younger one hoping to get into the business, but a kid who looked eighteen stuck out more than most.

"Hello, sir," he said in greeting. The customer responded in kind, looking a little awed at the small, but magnificent, store. "Looking for a suit today?" He nodded.

"Job interview. A very important one. What would you recommend?" He asked, sure to respect the man behind the counter while trying to give the impression that he could actually afford to shop here and knew what was going on.

The white-haired man glanced at the lanky, younger one, initially thinking about sending him off to a department store, but took in the other's strong posture, set jaw, and air of confidence and led him into the back.

Taking his measurements took little time, as he cooperated and wasn't mouthy. The customer decided on a black, superfine wool in an English cut. He had confidence that it would be perfect before the fifteen days were up. He wanted to make a good impression on Q division, and make himself look older and more professional. He exited the shop more confident than he'd entered it, and encountered a light London drizzle on his way out. Typical.

The next few days passed without incident, and he moved back into his newly painted flat. It still stank of the liquid color but that would be gone soon enough. He began to draft his plans for MI6 while sitting in the middle of his bedroom, taking swift notes on his new laptop, which he had plans to heavily modify. Night fell before he knew it, and he ate some leftovers from breakfast before turning in.

Two weeks after he had talked to M, he returned to the tailor. The silver bell chimed gently as he stepped in in his nicest checked shirt and the lavender tie, which he was rather partial to. His jeans would be coming off soon, so it made no difference what they looked like. He rang the bell at the wooden counter and waited as the old tailor made his way up from the back. They nodded at each other in silent greeting before heading to the back.

He changed quickly out of his jeans and pulled on the finely crafted dark suit, which fit him perfectly. The tailor apparently didn't think so and did some pinning and drawing with chalk before letting the customer see himself in the mirror. He looked at himself, trying to put on an air of confidence. He looked older than his years, finally, and he smiled. He was ready to take on M again, and hopefully replace her dead staff member. He knew that MI6 agents usually looked the part, and he wanted to prove to her that he could not only undergo the torture and kidnapping of a field agent, he could dress just as well as them too. Hopefully she would be impressed. Clothes did make the man, after all.

He woke up far too early that next day, before the sun had even risen. He made himself some Earl Grey in his small, modern teakettle and downed it, letting the caffeine rush into his system. He got back in bed with his laptop to do some final revisions of his plan before getting dressed and heading out to pick up his suit. He turned to look in the mirror once more, absentmindedly flattening his hair with one hand before heading out to MI6.

Being seated across the large desk in the large office made him feel especially small. The suit did little for his perception of size but wonders for his confidence. He knew he would leave here with a job, and a good one at that. M regarded him with some interest.

"You dressed up. Why?"

"It is a job interview after all," he quipped, smiling a bit, trying to cover the odd churning anxiety in his stomach.

She smiled slightly, looking about as pleasantly surprised as someone without facial expressions could. "You've decided to take the job."

"Yes, I hear you're in dire need of a Quartermaster."

"You've heard correctly. Welcome, Q. Don't screw up."

Q smiled, readily accepting his new title. "I suppose I start today, then."

"Put them in order, boy." She nodded towards him and slid a temporary ID badge across the desk. He took it and put it around his neck, then got up and resolved to find his own way down to Q division.

It didn't take him very long. Q division's offices were just a few floors above ground, as most of the testing for the new gadgetry was housed safely underneath the earth. Constant bangs from firearm testing weren't something that the oblivious people of London wanted to hear all day and all night. He ditched his suit in his new office, a gorgeous place with loads of potential and no ugly ceramics on the desk, and then thoroughly explored the sub-basements, knowing that he was going to be spending a lot of time in them over the course of this job. Taking off the jacket would make him seem like just another young lackey putting in his hours. He wanted to observe what he had before taking control of the place. All in all, they were an organized, hardworking bunch that needed a leader. He smiled at all the cups of tea abandoned or forgotten on many of the large number of available flat surfaces. It seemed that the average operative in Q division was in the right place- they were intelligent people who disliked sleeping and loved caffeine, along with computers and taking things apart. Q liked most of them upon sight. Around the floors they inhabited there were small knots of people creating a low buzz of intelligent techie chatter. He was quite tempted to join in when he heard a few of them talking about a retina recognition upgrade to the security system at MI6. Q blended in easily with most of them, using the ID card to look around, taking mental notes about what needed fixing. Fortunately, there wasn't much, except the lack of real organization within the division. He was confident that he could pull Q division together more easily than M would expect.

After he'd wandered around the research and development floors of the division, Q donned ear protection and observed weapons being put to the test down in the ranges in the subbasements. It was impressive to say the least, ranges of a few hundred yards or more with capable agents or some of the more rogue and hands-on Q division operatives on one end, and a tiny-seeming target on the other. Needless to say, the target came away with many more holes in it than the shooter. Q was fascinated by their accuracy and vowed to himself to pick up shooting here at MI6. It would do him good, and he'd be able to protect himself if he were to be ambushed again. He also loved to have a few good tricks up his sleeve. He may look young and inexperienced, but he wanted to prove to MI6 that he was good. And to be good, you had to be more on the inside than you seemed on the outside.

He wrapped up his tour of Q division and went back up to the office to grab the coat- he wanted to stay looking sharp talking to M. He took the elevator up until it stopped at her floor, pulling on the coat in the process and attempting to flatten his rather unruly hair. The walk to her office was short and he regained his air of confidence, happy that it was no longer false in the slightest. He waited outside the door for a moment, hearing voices, but backed up as her last meeting left. Then he entered with a smile on his face.

"M. I see that Q division could use me. It's not as bad as I expected. I'll be back tomorrow. And do see about getting a permanent ID made for me. I expect to be here for a while."


	4. Quartermaster

The second day on the job was more businesslike than the first. Q was getting ready in his office to present Q division with their new head. He was strangely nervous. He had heard that the Quartermasters rarely lasted more than a few years and he was out to prove them wrong.

He clipped his new permanent ID to his belt loop and looked at himself in one of the windows, adjusting his glasses and one of his stray curls. He had much to do today. He had called a meeting of Q division for fifteen minutes this morning, picking a window in which no one had anything pressing to do. That had been harder than expected. They were to meet from 10:06 to 10:21, something that sounded irregular, but everything ran like clockwork at MI6. Planning everything down to the minute was more of a necessity than a quirk. He sat instead of pacing and ran over what he was going to say again. There wasn't much to present, really, but he wanted to give the division time to adjust to someone not only completely new, but probably the youngest out of all of them. He knew it would be a shock, and he wanted to be ready for everything that would come at him. Insults seemed likely, but he would see when the meeting started.

Q got to the meeting room unnecessarily early and opened his omnipresent laptop to tap away at his security system upgrade plans- a pet project of his which he thought he'd do after he finished getting Q division in more order. First, though, Q had decided on some major upheaval in the section, thinking it would work to set it all in order. He was surprised when the door opened with an electronic beep to let in the first arrivals, a diverse bunch of people from young women to men in their fifties. He smiled and braced himself as he shut his laptop.

"Welcome," he started, gesturing to the large table. "Please sit, I'm sure everyone else will be here soon." He was inwardly glad that he hadn't tripped over a word yet. They sat and people started to flood in as 10:06 got closer. Finally, when the last of Q division had entered, he stood.

"You entered this meeting today expecting a new Quartermaster." There was a buzz around the room after the last word, people speculating about who it could be. Many of them glanced up at him and turned to shake their heads, thinking that the young-looking guy definitely couldn't be a Quartermaster. He let the buzz of chatter die down after everyone had quieted, apparently all thinking that someone older and more important-looking was going to enter soon and that they should watch for him or her. They were wrong.

"And here I am." Q said, smiling and bowing slightly. There was almost a roar that ran from the front of the room to the back as everyone incredulously talked a few times faster than normal, looking around to make sure he was the only new person in the room. They all knew that no one had been promoted, or this meeting would hardly be happening this way. The shocked air of the place was thick, and this time the talking did not die down, in fact, it just got louder and louder as the seconds ticked away. The entirety of Q division was shocked and disbelieving. Q stood his ground, trying his hardest to project the quiet, calm authority that M did so easily. It was harder than it seemed while people were one lick of professionalism away from pointing and laughing at you. His pale, almost gray eyes flicked to each member of Q division in turn, and under his attempt at a commanding gaze they actually quieted. Q felt a small surge of pride within him, thinking that getting these people to accept him might be easier than he had originally thought.

Once his eyes had traveled all over the large, wood-paneled conference room, he smiled. "I've been informed that I don't exactly exemplify what the division was expecting," he stated, having decided to put it mildly. A murmured agreement made its way around the long, oval shaped table. He thought he could hear a few quiet laughs, but he wrote that away to paranoia and continued. "But I assure you I will be everything that the division needs me to be." The minutes were ticking away- the pauses for reaction had taken much longer than he had estimated. He needed to wrap it up, do it well, and do it quickly.

"Q division is already in the 21st century, as is the rest of MI6. I don't disagree with that. You as a whole have done some amazing things, and I applaud each and every one of you for the important technological advances you've made here, and for keeping our agents safe." He began to clap quietly, and the room began to join in. Soon there was loud, hearty applause, with smiles on even the oldest and most bitter-looking agents' faces, smiles that he imagined hadn't been in place for a long time. He began to speak above the applause, and his audience granted him respect.

"But we need to keep ahead of the game. Q division needs to be excellent, and we will be. To stay ahead of the enemy we must keep ourselves together, and pick up the pieces in this time of chaos. Once we are together again, we will be faster and more advanced than anything our opposition has ever seen. We will be light-years ahead, and we will work together to bring our humble Q division into the 22nd century, many decades in advance!" He spoke with conviction, adrenaline humming through his veins and in his words. He had no doubt now that he would be able to lead this division creatively and effectively. He didn't realize that he was grinning until he began to laugh quietly over the raucous applause of many people who were probably only running on caffeine. The clock's minute hand ticked to the end of the meeting, and people streamed out with smiles on their faces. One older man who had been sitting near the back came up to Q.

"You've proven you can speak well, boy. Now lead well." He nodded respectfully.

"I will, sir. I will," he said, sticking out his hand. The other man took it.

"Welcome, Q," he said, cracking a smile. "Do us good." He shook his hand and left.

Q nearly collapsed into the chair, running his fingers through his brown mop. He felt proud having effectively introduced himself to his division, and now he had to lead it.

He spent the next few days starting to implement his preliminary plan for the division. He wanted Q division to have an edge over the big technology companies and weapons companies which provided gadgets to their enemies, and he decided that the most effective way to do it would be personalization. Field agents and Q divisioners with compatible personalities and ways of thinking would be paired, and they would use their compatibility to their advantage, with the people from Q division finding out and designing exactly what their agents needed in order to gain a level of finesse and effectiveness from the technology that would otherwise be missing. Also, having pairs would let the agents place their trust in someone who knew them well and knew their likes and dislikes, creating trust within the pair as well as a more bonded and integrated MI6. Agents and their handlers, as he called them, seemed to be the right idea. Handlers was a name already used at the intelligence agency, for those who helped the agent through tough spots in their mission and corresponded with them, but Q felt that applying permanence and having the person who actually designed and tested the technology be the one to walk the agent through using it would be an effective and reliable idea.

The first day was spent pairing up the newer field agents and Q division operatives. Many of them, partly due to the fact that both sets tended to be younger, were easier to pair. They were less set in their ways and more likely to accept change, as well as being more social and flexible. He got ten pairs set and logged into his tablet, a pet he'd picked up as a prototype from one of the R&D teams downstairs. It seemed that they had already taken a liking to him. Q had observed over his few days here that the teams most involved in design and research liked having freedom and gladly accepted a new leader who was different with unconventional ideas. Their jobs were all about testing new things and seeing what worked. He thought they would be fans of his social experiment of sorts. The people whose jobs had more to do with personal relationships and those who were more embedded in the MI6 hierarchy (as opposed to spending countless hours without seeing another human while poring over gadgetry) were less welcoming of change and more likely to keep away from him, probably gossiping over lunch about how he would be useless and taking bets on how long he would last.

He tended to avoid them at all costs. Q was more of a loner himself, much happier to spend hours embedded in the constant flow and hum of technology than the irritating, organic mess of humanity. He promised himself that he would be doing much more of that once he got his new ideas up and running. For now, alas, there were plenty of humans to deal with.

Q was happy that at the end of his first few days pairing that no one was really unsatisfied. Next he would tackle the next level of agents, the ones who had stuck around for at least a decade. He planned to put field agents and Q operatives with roughly the same level of time at MI6 together, thinking that they were likely to have gone through the same things, if not at opposite ends of the spectrum. They seemed as if they would have roughly the same tolerance for change and were at least somewhat aware of each other, in opposition to the newer ones who were still getting used to the job. It was challenging work, and he spent countless hours over a list with a pen, crossing out names and scribbling quotation marks. Q might love technology, even favor it over people much of the time, but nothing beat a good pen and paper list. There was something about its organic nature that he favored when working with nature's variables- people.

Finally he had some idea of the pairings, and finalized them on his tablet while finishing the last of his brewed-hours-ago Earl Grey before going to bed. He knew they may not be perfect, and there was many a spare agent who could not be paired, be it an excess of field or Q agents, if not their undesirable temperament. He thought the number of spare Q and field operatives would generally even out, leaving them to assist each other as they saw fit, while (especially the Q spares) they could help out others as well.

The next morning brought some anxiety as he realized that he had overslept, probably due to staying up so late before retiring to bed. He had agonized over the list more than he probably had needed to, and it had cost him in hours. He dressed in one of his nicer cardigans, a dark gray which made his manner of dress and his eyes seem particularly sharp, and a matching tie along with black pants, hastily grabbing his good glasses (he wore an old pair at home- less potential damage to the nice ones) and rushed out, hailing a taxi instead of walking.

Q arrived in his office only minutes after MI6 had begun buzzing for the day, relieved it had not taken him longer to arrive. He gave himself only an hour to find and inform the agents of their pairings, and set out to achieve his task. The first pair consisted of a 12-year Q agent and a similarly 12-year veteran of field agency. They were both buried deep in their respective divisions, and it took the somewhat harried Quartermaster ten minutes to find and talk to each of them, setting him back twenty minutes. He could just post announcements, but he preferred to see the agents' reactions in person. It helped him gauge how good his decision was and how likely it was to work out. In the case of this one, it worked well, and he smiled, a bit proud that his fretting was for naught.

Satisfied that his first pair of the day had worked, he proceeded to seeking out the next two agents on his list, a pair of 15-year veterans of MI6 who knew each other's ups and downs already. The remaining people on the list were paired just as well, and he was satisfied with his day's work. There was much to be done, though, as the next bunch of agents on his list were the Double 0s, the most lethal and effective of all of MI6's field agents. The true spies, those who would happily die in the name of Queen and Country, had to be partnered up with the lucky (and in a few cases not so lucky) Q division operatives who could handle them.

There was much work to be done on Q's part. This likely meant more than a few nights over pen and paper and cold cups of Earl Grey, trying to find matches for the often-impossible Double 0 agents. That very night he brewed a pot and settled in for the long haul, intending to put his mind to good use finding compatible partners for those who killed in the name of their country often and ruthlessly. He sighed, the first of many for the night, and picked up his pen, writing the first number. 001 would fortunately be easier to pair than most, as the agent possessed both a calm temperament (not just the illusion of one, which was all too common among the higher ranking field agents) and a fondness for organization. He trawled through the (digital this time) list of Q operatives without field agent counterparts and found one on just the second read-through. An essential part of Q division for going on 16 years, the agent that Q found was levelheaded though creative. He thought they would work exceptionally well together.

He tackled one Double 0 every night that week. 002 and 005 gave him far more trouble than he had anticipated, but like 001, 004 and 006 went by almost too easily. Their pairings ended up being much more diverse than Q had originally thought, with young to old, female to male, newbie to experienced, and some other borders being crossed. 003 gave him some trouble, but after a few run-throughs of the handy operatives list he stumbled upon the agent's perfect handler.

Now for 007.

Q knew the tradition. One picked up these things fast when joining MI6. First you learned the acronyms, then the traditions. He currently held a record for learning the acronyms, so he had gotten to tradition fast. Either way, he knew what was expected of him and he decided not to deviate from it.

He would become 007's full time handler. The top field agent for the Quartermaster. He knew he could deal with Bond. His brilliant mind and nimble fingers would be a good counterweight to Bond's brash but creative ruthlessness. He hoped that they would be compatible. One did not saddle Bond on someone else.

He looked forward to his first Bond assignment with a mixture of excitement and nerves.

It was absolutely justified.


	5. Prototype

Merely weeks after Q implemented his handler system did he get his first assignment from the MI6 brass. Bond, with an injured pride and an injured shoulder from some suicide mission in Istanbul (and the testing after it) needed to go to Shanghai for some important data recovery mission. The message from M said this much in fewer words and was signed with '_details to follow_.' He already knew who it was. An upgraded agency messaging system had been his pet project in between pairing and his first handler assignment. It had not taken him long but had so far proven quite useful. He dismissed the message and its subsequent reminders and pulled up a new document on his somewhat modified laptop.

Bond would need a gun. That much was easy-it was standard issue for MI6 field agents. Concealed weapon laws be damned, they protected their country and they needed protection. MI6 floated above the law in this respect. Q knew that the research and development team of his division had recently gotten some surplus stock to play with, and Q fully intended on getting his hands on a few. He had little time before the agent left for China, and he realized that despite his wishes, he wouldn't be able to make major changes to the weapon. Of course, his idea of "major changes" might seem radical to the layman.

He decided on something fairly new that he had a good amount of confidence in. Gone were the days of fingerprint recognition (in Q division anyway), as there were many more parts of a human that were unique enough to be used for one-person identification. Fingers could be cut off and pressed to ID pads manually, and no one had time to heat- and pulse-sensor everything, especially the triggers of guns. What else was used in gripping a gun, besides the fingers? The only other part of a person involved in holding and firing a gun was the palm, which happened to have its own unique print. In MI6 field agents, these prints were often very one-of-a-kind, as the palms of its agents had a tendency to collect interesting scars.

Q decided on his modification then. A gun that could recognize someone's palm print would come in handy, as the weapon would not fire without its owner holding it, therefore protecting the agent in dangerous situations when their weapon was taken from them. "Protect the agent" was one of Q division's unwritten laws, and he thought he had a clever idea before he realized that he wouldn't have time to collect a properly usable print of 007's palm. His latest battle scars might not show up in the possibly out of date prints, and he had no time to get to the agent and test him himself. He searched the vast computer database belonging to Q division and then the much larger MI6 database. Nothing more recent than a few years ago appeared. He was frustrated with the agency's record keeping. Q decided to get off his laptop and see what he could do off of the digital record book.

He did a few good hours of digging through physical records in one of the various sub-basements under the less gun-frequent areas, and turned up with nothing that he deemed useful. Q was then determined to trace the path of the agent himself and see if he could come up with some more recent records of Bond.

He struck gold within an hour, finding the not yet filed (as they had been fudged) records of Bond's latest field service tests. Among the files were complete handprints that Q deemed of appropriate quality to prepare a palm-printed gun. He scanned the prints and not the rest of the records into his personal files and went about magnifying them. He tweaked the quality of the image and ran a few tests to insure that a small laser would scan it properly. Q started to build a small recognition program. He tested it against his own hand, and smiled when his rough program denied him access. He pulled a few Q divisioners from mundane tasks to have them checked (glee was obvious on their faces as the little laser scanned their palm).

"What's this for, Q?" asked a man not too much older than the Quartermaster himself and in possession of a thick Irish brogue. He had been looking at his left hand curiously since he had been zapped.

"Palm-reading weapon. I'm planning to take some of those Walthers off of your hands." He smiled and absentmindedly pushed up his glasses. "It's working so far. You're obviously not James Bond."

"Only in my dreams," he replied, nudging Q in a friendly manner. "I'd get the ladies then, I bet."

He laughed along with the other agent and beckoned up the next Q operative milling about, a no-nonsense looking woman in her late thirties or early forties who seemed very interested in his idea. "Do you think it's plausible?" she asked, eyes skimming over his little assembly.

"If I can get it right, it'll work." He smiled a bit and scanned her palm, satisfied with his work as it denied her as well. The brown-haired Quartermaster was confident in his ability to physically manifest most of his ideas- technology-related ideas, anyway.

He put some real effort into the idea, miniaturizing everything again and again before he was satisfied with a fingernail-size chip and a tiny camera. It was only then could he acquire a new Walther handgun to take apart. Within the hour, the weapon laid in pieces across the desk of the Quartermaster. He was most interested in the grip and trigger, but if there was a good reason not to take it apart he hadn't found it yet. He had picked up and looked at the grip of the gun a good number of times already, and each time found no reason why it could not have some sort of tough, clear plastic in it. He knew of a few plastics that would be strong and impact-resistant (what happened to 007's weapons, the world may never know), both enough to satisfy a reckless field agent. He knew that a few of the operatives on one of Q division's lower floors had built a very useful 3-D printer a while ago and he figured he could pull rank to play with it and possibly print the gun grip at the same time.

The next morning, as the sun had long ago set by the time Q was out that past day, he headed down a few floors with a box full of select gun pieces. With him he also carried his chip and camera, and his tablet for note taking. After some playful banter with the mechanically gifted Q operatives, they agreed to help him with the gun parts and started doing some serious measurement with a nifty little laser. They reassured him that they could take care of it and told him to bugger off and do something important instead of drooling over their devices (metaphorically speaking of course).

Q followed their advice and went back up to his office to find another message from M waiting. This one was the promised details to follow, and outlined Bond's plan of attack and location, which was going to be all over the place. M had included that she wanted to keep track of Bond in this particular mission, and that she knew Q could come up with something. Well, not in those exact, encouraging terms, but she got the point across. He set about obtaining a little GPS chip from the supply downstairs, and started work on a tiny transmitter. He never would have guessed that his work at MI6 was all going to be so…_small_. Q settled into a rhythm easily and got to work. He lost track of time working on the miniscule metal device and was surprised when a knock on his door roused him from his trance.

"Your gun part's ready. Going to come down and have a look?" the young man was leaning against the doorframe with pride tugging against the corners of his mouth.

"Of course," he said, standing and carefully setting down his tools. The transmitter was almost finished, anyway.

The gun part was exactly what Q had envisioned, and he was happy with the end result, immediately taking it to implement his design. The tough plastic held up to a battery of tests and scrutiny and went through it all again before the wavy-haired Quartermaster decided that it was good enough to be used in a handgun for a Double 0 in a dangerous situation. He took it apart to put in the chip and camera, which were now connected with some tiny wiring that had taken him the better part of a day to perfect. There was one new part to the assembly as well, a small latch inside the casing he had been working with which would lock the trigger and prevent firing of the gun if the chip it was hooked up to did not recognize the palm wrapped around the handgun's grip. He then reassembled the Walther _sans_ the factory-issued handgrip, putting in his design instead. It fit perfectly and stood up to the same strength tests conducted before assembly. He raised the gun, put his index finger on the trigger, aimed it at his door around eye height, and started to squeeze.

The first thing M saw when she opened the door to the office of the new Quartermaster was the barrel of a handgun aimed at her head. She had very little time to react before the young new hire dropped his hand, looking horrified. M realized that she could have been dead if it had been an enemy behind the door and made a mental note to work on her reaction time, knowing that she as a higher level operative was subject to exactly the same (in her mind) regulations that her field agents were. The Quartermaster set the gun on the desk, looking at the woman who had hired him with cool indifference. M decided that he had adjusted to MI6 quickly, and much better than she had originally expected. She knew it had been the right choice to hire him.

"Our firing ranges are downstairs, Quartermaster. I'm sure that you know that," she stated evenly, keeping her gaze evened at the lanky man.

"I had no intention of firing," he returned in the same smooth tone. "It's a handgun for 007. I was merely judging its weight after adjustments." The lie was plausible and came out almost without thought. Q was getting more and more adjusted to life at MI6, and he had picked up the trick of falsehoods early and easily.

"What adjustments?" she asked, like she was judging him.

"I've modified this gun so it will only fire if it recognizes the palm print of its owner. In this case, it is wired for 007." He stated this casually, as if the adjustments had taken him very little time and effort. Seeming indifferent but intelligent seemed to be the right way to come across in this situation.

"I suggest you dismantle it and do more work. The weapon will be useless in a tight spot if Bond needs to fire with his left hand instead of his right, or vice versa. Don't tell me that you only set it to recognize one hand." M wanted Q to realize that small mistakes would cost him honor, and possibly an important agent's life.

"I'm afraid I'm one step ahead." He picked up the weapon with his other hand, tapping the grip with his index finger, and definitely not letting pride into his tone. "I've already considered the possibility. The gun is coded to both of his palms, and was from the first modification."

"Either way, it will not work. The digital records of 007's palm prints are several years old at the very least."

"Not the ones from the testing you 'modified,'" the brunet said casually. "Do not think I can only find something if it exists in digital form. I scanned them and stored a copy for myself. I see he's come across some interesting scars since the last time he was tested. Knife fights, I'm guessing."

M let a tight smile flash across her face. The boy was better than she'd expected, and the information she had gathered from other loyal Q division operatives (including those with the 3-D printer) had proved correct. He had passed her test, and he had no idea of knowing.

Q let the same small smile grace his younger features. "I assume I have passed some sort of assessment, judging by the look of satisfaction on your face and the details regarding my work that you would not have known or even taken a particular interest in had you not been talking to my agents." He'd learned to listen to whispers.

"Welcome to MI6, Q." She exited, pausing before closing the door behind her. "And for future notice, pointing guns at colleagues is usually reserved for field agents. Unless you'd like to enter the field?" M savored the sour, shocked look on Q's face before exiting the office. That boy was intelligence stock born and bred, and she was proud for having sought him out.

Q spent a few hours in a state of mild pride and fascination as he tweaked the gun, making numerous small changes, adding lights which showed if access was approved or denied, as well as disguising the handle to make it look more like the black plastic of the original unmodified gun. He also perfected the tracker, and set it to signal MI6 if it was activated, so 007 could have quick backup. Before packing up his gadgets for the field agent, he gave them a few last tests and fixed any errors that he found, which weren't many at this stage. Q was most of all confident in the palm-printed Walther, something he wanted to come back unharmed, even though 007 had quite the reputation for returning without any of the Q division's precious equipment. He knew somewhere that all of his good hard work on the gun and the tiny tracker might be for naught, but thinking that they might save one of the most important agents in MI6 made him proud to be where he was, and even more proud to know that the higher-ups were giving him close to free rein in this respect.

Q's devices might be perfect (or at least he hoped so) but there was now the question of getting said devices to the agent that they had been specially developed for. M wanted Q to meet 007, and she had decided that the best way to get the high-ranking spy to warm to the young new Quartermaster was to show him the genius of the wavy-haired man right off the spot.

That's how Q ended up getting past security at a fine art museum with a high-tech handgun in his coat.


	6. First Impressions

He walked casually into the blue-gray gallery, dressed for the occasion in a light shirt and the skinny lavender tie, as well as some bulky coats, now unzipped, that had concealed his possessions on the way in. He went straight for the blond man on the bench, whom he had spotted immediately on his way into the hall. MI6's youngest ever Quartermaster sat gracefully right beside the operative in the sharp, tailored coat, who looked with mild professional interest at the curly-haired man. The older agent had unconsciously shifted his left hand to his knee, resting his fingers on the gray material of his trousers. His subconscious was preparing to get up quickly if need be, and he was fully prepared for the situation. An MI6 Double 0 was lethal with or without a weapon. Even though he had come to an art gallery, the agent paid no attention to the large paintings with the gilded frames behind him, instead focusing intently on the person who had casually sat beside him. It did not seem like a coincidence (after all, he was here to meet his Quartermaster) but the bench was long and mostly empty besides the smartly dressed blond man. No one would have sat right next to him, as he was not only a stranger but looked quite intimidating for a visitor to the National Gallery. The young man, however, fit right in. He looked just like a university student studying art or some shit, with his thick-rimmed glasses and deliberately left messy hair. Skinny ties were also popular amongst the younger geek generation. Maybe he was some queer art kid with a thing for older men. Either way, Bond was sure that his Quartermaster wasn't this purple tie kid and that he might have to rise very quickly and inform M.

After a terse second or two on Bond's part scanning the newcomer for some kind of indication, or perhaps a glance of acknowledgement, the young man hadn't made any move to look back and instead looked straight ahead at the painting on the wall. Bond shifted before looking straight ahead at the art along with him, hand still on his knee in a subconscious move of awareness (the young man was certainly relaxed- Bond had noticed his casual stance which was too natural to be fake and his hands, the fingers of which were not clenched nor spread, both indications of strong emotion). Bond certainly wasn't the kind of pussy who took an art class in uni but his vision was over 20/20. He had read the small white placard near the painting ten times over, in between casual glances around the room for potential threats or potential Quartermasters. "The Fighting Temeraire" by JMW Turner was how the painting was identified, and he focused his attention on it as if the painting of the old ship would somehow give him insight to his peculiar bench mate.

"It always makes me feel a little melancholy," the brunet began in a relaxed tone that implied that he knew exactly what he was doing. "Grand old warship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap." He paused with a sort of sighing breath that was part good acting and part true. Bond felt as if the man knew the title and painter of the piece by heart. He seemed to have seen it enough times. He kept his guard up as the thin man continued. "The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see?" He had turned to look at Bond with what may have been a spark of curiosity in his eye, then looked back at the piece, seemingly nonchalant.

"A bloody big ship," the blond agent replied, trying to keep his response gruff and brief, wanting to brush off the other man. "Excuse me." He made to get up off the bench and find somewhere else to look for his Quartermaster and inevitably his gun. This was getting ridiculous. Right as he began to rise, the other spoke again.

"007," he began just as casually. Bond froze and shifted back down into the seat. There was no way this skinny kid was the Quartermaster, and he didn't know why they'd sent a messenger… His thought process, however quick, was smoothly interrupted. "I'm your new Quartermaster."

Bond opened his mouth to speak as soon as the words touched his brain. He held in a short laugh. "You must be joking," he stated with an irritated and obvious lack of amusement.

Q took in a small, amused breath that in another setting may have been a polite chuckle. "Why, because I'm not wearing a lab coat?"

"Because you still have spots," Bond answered, obviously peeved but a bit too well trained to do something drastic in London's National Gallery.

Q knew that his quick snappy statement was false. He was quite proud of his complexion after he'd grown out of the irritating blemishes. "My complexion is hardly relevant," he countered, not bothering to mention his other thoughts. 007 was just as easily irritable as M had implied.

"Your competence is," he replied easily, still shifting as if he were uncomfortable. He was still somewhat shocked that the geeky-looking kid was the one he had come here for.

"Age is no guarantee of efficiency," Q said, mildly amused by the whole covert meet-up situation but more so by Bond's reaction to him.

"And youth is no guarantee of innovation." Bond was obviously not happy having to listen to him.

"Well, I'll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field," came the next quick and cutting statement. His chin rose just a little as if the small touch of arrogance assured the statement.

"Oh, so why do you need me?" Bond asked, dryly sarcastic. The skinny little shit was beginning to get on his nerves.

Q paused for a half second. "Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled." He knew there was just a hint of a smile on his face and he made little attempt to hide it. He was interested in the older agent's reaction to him.

Bond turned to look at the younger man, who did not acknowledge the glance. The ship in its frame seemed to be of utmost importance. "Or not pulled. It's hard to know which in your pajamas." He let the brunet glance back at him, and he seemed a bit interested that Bond had actually listened to something he'd said. Bond let a smirk tug up the right corner of his mouth. The kid had started to grow on him already. His arrogance was amusing, and it was time to see if it were justified. "Q," he said in recognition of his new Quartermaster, pronouncing the letter exaggeratedly and carefully.

Q looked at him, a real albeit small smile spreading across his thin face. He lifted his right hand off of the black box that had been resting against his outer thigh and offered it to the field agent. "007," he said formally as they shook hands.

As the grip ended a full-blown _who would have known_ smirk assured its place on the face of the blond agent, and the brunet reached into his inner coat, a nice black sport coat with an inner pocket from which he retrieved an envelope.

"Ticket to Shanghai," he said, handing Bond the envelope, which was larger than letter sized, white with heavy paper and "007" typed on it in a font reminiscent of a typewriter. Bond tucked it into the pocket of his own navy blue coat. "Documentation impossible."

"Thank you," Bond responded, as Q lifted the black box and handed it over as well. It had a shiny silver lock on its case but was not locked and there was no key.

"And this," he added. Bond opened the box to find a small black gun.

"Walther PPK/S 9 millimeter short. Has a microdermal sensor in the grip." He was talking tech for the work he had done for palm recognition. Honestly, he could have done it with a simple sensor of the type he had mentioned, but he hadn't had access to Bond's physical palm print and had wanted to do all the modifications by hand and by himself. There was a certain…personal touch. He also trusted himself more than any machine. "It's been coded to your palm print so only you can fire it." Q glanced away again as Bond turned his head to the Quartermaster. "Less of a random killing machine, more of a personal statement." Bond found the idea appealing, intelligent, and a bit sexy. Anyone killed with this gun died by Bond's hand.

The blond agent noticed a small space in the foam of the case for a rectangular object. "And this?" he asked.

"Standard-issue radio transmitter," Q replied, handing Bond the small silver gadget. He didn't mention the work done on that either. "Activate it and it broadcasts your location." They both focused on the transmitter, which looked even smaller in Bond's fingers. "Distress signal," Q clarified. Bond pressed a small black square of plastic on its front. A tiny, perhaps a centimeter and a half long antenna rose from its top and a small yellow light above the button began to blink. "And that's it," the brunet finished. Bond pressed the antenna back into the body of the device, placing it in the case.

"A gun, and a radio," 007 muttered, clicking the case shut. "Not exactly Christmas, is it?" Q had already picked up on the dry-sarcasm talent of Bond's.

"Were you expecting an exploding pen?" the younger agent replied with the same tone, turning to look at him. "We don't really go in for that anymore." His mouth quirked a bit as he looked at the field agent, a gesture that may have somewhere else been a wink. Q stood up, taking in a breath as he stepped in front of Bond and began to walk away, quickly glancing at the high glass paneled ceiling above them. He turned around to look at the other agent. "Good luck out there in the field," he said cordially but not very formally, "And please return the equipment in one piece." His tone revealed just a bit of condescension. He turned back around and walked away, perhaps to explore more of the gallery.

"A brave new world," the now lone agent said aloud as Q left. He remained on the bench, staring at the painting of the ship for a while before returning to the agency.

Bond appreciated the quirky new Quartermaster for the second time in Shanghai (as the first had been with his humor) as he gripped his Walther, intent on following Patrice, the man in possession of the hard drive, into an abandoned office building in which he knew he'd need protection. It registered his palm print and he smiled as the lights above the grip blinked to green.

Q would have gone to Macau himself to tell Bond of the decryption, but he was afraid of flying. He knew it was irrational, but the fear existed in spite of him. Bond replied "Of course he is" when given the news by Eve. It seemed like something Q would have. There was a smile hidden somewhere amongst his words.

Bond was on edge walking into the grand candle-lit casino. The people milling about and the komodo dragons below set off his sense of unease. Occasionally he would touch the gun to make sure he still had it, knowing that his life likely rested in the skills of a new, young Quartermaster.

As soon as the first hit came Bond knew that he would probably be depending on the gun to walk out alive. The suitcase was a useful weapon, he mused as he swung it at the enemy, but anyone could take possession of it. He analyzed the situation, starting with the location. His mind raced as he fought off the well-dressed men with a suitcase full of Chinese money over a pit holding multiple komodo dragons. He had very little of an advantage and tried to use his physical strength to the best of his ability without getting all three of them thrown to the dragons. The bridge was narrow and didn't give him much room, but he swung the metal suitcase as forcefully as he could at the heads of his assailants. He had just successfully nailed one before the other ran at him, grabbed him by his lower body and with an excess of momentum managed to send them both flying over the rail into the komodo pit. He felt the adrenaline surge as soon as his feet were knocked out from under him and realized what was happening a half second later. He prepared himself to land safely without broken bones, taking mental note of the position of his gun and the length of the fall. The falling itself took a much shorter time than expected, and he noticed one of the creatures slowly emerging from the shadows as soon as he gracelessly hit the ground. It was hissing- not a good sign. He rolled to his feet as gracefully as possible, getting away from the reptile as he did so. It was probably a very bad idea, but the lizard was dismissed as his attacker managed to get to his feet as well. Bond assumed a fighting stance and quickly ducked the first punch that was thrown at him, almost hitting the dirt. He rose even more quickly and got in a hard slug to the face before having to dodge another punch. Another quick hit by Bond and the assailant was falling, nearly hitting the dirt of the komodo pit before managing to pick himself back up. Bond cursed himself for a moment for his lapse in concentration and felt blood start to rush to his head as he was picked up, strangled-sounding yells coming from one of them as Bond was thrown and hit the dirt on his back. He laid there for a second, trying to regain his breath, frustrated that he wasn't in the shape that he had been before. He had to contain a smile, through, as his attacker quickly took his gun. The dark haired man pointed the weapon as a komodo dragon behind him crawled out of the shadow. Bond picked himself up and dusted himself off as the lizard behind his attacker grew closer, forked tongue out and flicking as it approached the man's leg.

"Good luck with that," 007 quipped, pointing a finger weakly at the other man while breathing raggedly. The attacker gripped the barrel of the weapon but the lights directly below the hammer were not green, but red.

The ugly, bulky, bearded man may have been the one to kill Bond if his pulling the trigger had not resulted in a soft _click_.

Q had saved his life.


	7. Skyfall

Bond looked on as his enemy was bitten and knocked to the ground by the reptile. The other man was dragged away, yelling, unfortunately taking the modified Walther with him. Bond glanced to the ground as the other creature trotted out of its pit on the opposite side and headed to lunch. He managed to step up on the moving creature and jump, propelling himself up just far enough to grab hold of the bridge. He came face to face with a gun pointed at him by his other assailant, a pudgy, bald guy who was sprawled on his back. He had no time to react before a heeled foot stomped on the wrist attached to the hand holding the gun, an _oof_ noise coming from the man. He looked up to see it was Eve, in her long white dress. She held up the suitcase full of money and smirked.

"Thank you," Bond said, pulling himself up to the bridge. That had not gone to plan, though it had been successful. Though he wasn't looking forward to telling Q that he'd destroyed his earpiece and lost the Walther.

Q, meanwhile, was spending his time almost frantically trying to discover the source of the video, the computer that had uploaded the videos to the internet. He was getting nowhere fast. He was interrupted in his work when the signal assigned to Bond's tracker started to go off. He had activated the signal. Q called in the request for backup and had MI6 forces on their way. They went after Bond, who was at sea. He seemed to be heading toward an island. Q tracked his location as he approached it and went ashore. He waited almost impatiently as Bond stopped and did not move for a long while. He knew that Bond was unlikely to be staying perfectly still for a long time by his own will. That and the activation of the transmitter pointed to Bond being held against his will somehow on what he later learned was a deserted island. He called the pilots that were on their way and told them to speed up as he believed that Bond was being held against his will and may be in danger. He was surprised at their efficiency, though, when they arrived long ahead of schedule. Bond was yelling at the time.

"Latest thing from Q branch…called a radio!"

Bond was back within the day.

And Q was given the job of figuring out Silva's computer.

Down in Q division, he pressed 'enter' and streams of white nonsense flew across its screen.

"Now, looking at Silva's computer, it seems to me that he's done a number of slightly unusual things," The Quartermaster, with hair looking tamer than usual, turned to the large center screen on one of the walls of Q division. He was wearing a white shirt, dark tie, his nice glasses and a brown cardigan with a darker collar. He was interested in the doings of the insane ex-agent.

"He's established failsafe protocols to wipe the memory if there's any attempt to access certain files." He adjusted his glasses, looking up and down. "Only about six people in the world could program failsafes like that."

"Of course there are, can you get past them?" asked Bond, whose benefit Q had been talking for. He was standing near the center screen in a sharp navy suit, complete with matching tie and pocket square. His hair looked grayer than usual.

"I invented them," Q stated brusquely, turning away from Silva's technology to grab a few white wires with odd-looking ports. He plugged this in to the computer.

"Right then," he continued, connecting another before straightening back up. "Let's see what you've got for us, Mr. Silva." The white gibberish on the screen reorganized itself into what looked like charts and boxes of intelligible data. There seemed to be lists as well as graphs and blocks of words. "We're in."

"Sir," one of the Q operatives said, interrupting Q's moment of satisfaction. He was a concerned looking dark skinned man, wearing glasses and tapping at a laptop, the screen of which had turned into the same thing showing on Silva's laptop. "What do you make of this?"

Q turned from said laptop to the center screen, which Bond also looked at. On it was a circle made of hundreds of tiny white lines, all pointing at the center as if it held a strange gravity. It pulsed like a heart, growing larger and smaller. The screen then zoomed in on its center, which seemed to contain data. Q looked at it, confused, and Bond looked at him.

"This is omega site. Best encrypted level he has. Looks like obfuscated code to conceal its true purpose. Security though obscurity." As Q tapped away what had been the center point now looked like a tangled web. Bond looked closely at the display as the Quartermaster alternately typed and glanced up at the screen. He spoke rapidly about his discovery as the web started to untangle, blue letters appearing in it.

"He's using a polymorphic engine to maintain the code. Whenever I try to gain access, it changes. It's like solving a Rubik's cube that's fighting back." The web rapidly spun as Q typed, a column of letters and numbers at its right side showing sudden connections with it through thin white lines that appeared and disappeared. Some of those letters and numbers were quickly highlighted in white or light blue. A few near the bottom were all highlighted, grouped together. The letters spelled out something. Bond looked like he knew something.

"Stop. Go in on that," he demanded, looking more closely at the grouped, highlighted letters. Q glanced up at it and then looked back down, typing a bit and making the columns of numbers and letters that Bond was interested in line up. They spelt something out. "Granborough. Granborough Road. It's an old tube station on the Metropolitan line, been closed for years." Bond paced in front of the screen as he spoke, then turned to the young man at the computer. He gestured to it. "Use that as the key." Q typed in the name and it seemed to give him access. The word blinked red and the color spread across the entire web. It shifted, quickly becoming more and more red. It seemed to be spreading out and detangling to show a network of lines, some curvy, some straight.

"Oh, look, it's a map!" Q seemed interested and excited that they'd cracked it.

Bond stepped over to one of the smaller screens to get a better look at the red lines on an overlay. "It's London. Subterranean London."

Q turned away from the center screen as a pneumatic puff sounded. He glanced over to see that one of the glass doors in the floor of Q division had swung open. "What's going on?" The second one swung open as well, then the third. Bond turned to look. "Why are the doors open?" Bond started to run, past the open doors and out of the glass doors of the division.

Q looked after him, concerned. Then he glanced back at the center screen, where a blue box had popped up on top of the red map. It read 'SYSTEM SECURITY BREACH.' A light blue bar which seemed to signify downloading or something started to fill. "Oh, no!" he said quietly, and then turned to his division. "Can someone tell me how the hell he got into our system?" Q glanced back down at Silva's computer. The red map which had been on the screen quickly condensed, red now forming an elaborately decorated skull with lines protruding from it. Its eyes blinked red and black and the words "Not such a clever boy" appeared underneath them. "Oh, shit!" He swore, sounding taken aback. He stepped quickly forward to yank the white cables out of the computer. "Shit, shit, shit! He hacked us."

Meanwhile, Bond was running underneath MI6, through a dimly lit tunnel. He heard an alarm blaring through the place. A red light flashed. "Oh, no," Bond said as he approached the cell that Silva had been held in. Two unconscious or dead guards lay near it. "Q, he's gone," the agent said, relying on his earpiece and microphone to send the message up to the division. He jogged over to what appeared to be a hole in the floor, seeing that two grates had been pushed apart to reveal a stairway below. He climbed down it. "I'm on a stairwell below isolation. Do you read me, Q?"

The sound came from a small, repurposed conference call speaker on the Quartermaster's desk, near his Scrabble tea mug. "I can hear you. I'm looking for you."

Bond noticed the escapee down far beneath him.

Meanwhile Q was tracking Bond's location on a glowing red schematic of what now housed MI6. The picture zoomed in on a tunnel heading downwards, and small square showed up marked "Bond." "Got you. Tracking your location. Just keep moving forward. Enter the next service door on your right." Bond followed the instructions, gun at the ready. "If you're through that door, you should be in the tube."

007 looked around the belowground cylindrical corridor. He stepped off the small platform that connected the tunnel he'd walked through to the long passageway. "I'm in the tube."

"Bond, this isn't an escape, this was years in the planning." Q spoke rapid-fire, turning from the screen to the computer as Bond walked through the quiet tunnel. "He wanted us to capture him, he wanted us to access his computer. It was all planned. Blowing up HQ, all the emergency protocols, knowing we'd retrieve down here."

"I got all that. What he's got planned next, that worries me," Bond said gruffly, still alert through his gun was down.

Q was looking at the large screen in front of him, following Bond. "District line is the closest. There should be a service door on your left."

Down in the tunnels, Bond glanced in the direction mentioned. "Got it." He reached forward to try to open it. The door rattled but did not give way. "It won't open."

"Of course it will. Put your back into it."

"Why don't you come down and put your back into it?" Bond snapped, mostly jesting. He put his shoulder against the door and tried to shove it open to no avail. "No, it's stuck." He stepped away a bit to glance down the tunnel. "Oh, good, there's a train coming." He began to get more and more illuminated as the train rounded the bend to face the agent.

Q was looking at the map of the Underground. A small, moving white square showed the location of the oncoming train. "Hmm, that's vexing."

Bond threw his entire weight at the door again and again as the train rapidly came closer. Q watched its progress wide-eyed, through his voice had betrayed little emotion. Bond kept trying, and finally gave up, shooting the lock on the door as the train was merely fifteen feet from him. He shot twice and threw himself through the opening, flattening himself against the door as the train sped past him. "I'm through."

"Told you! We've alerted security, police are on their way," Q reported. Bond raised his gun and went through the tunnel that the door had led to. He was walking parallel to a tube station and glanced through a gate, trying to get a glimpse of Silva. He pushed on the gate to see if it would open and it swung in, letting him into the station. Absolutely nobody seemed to notice. He slipped into the crowd, edging his way ahead as the train stopped. "Where are you now?" Q asked, glancing at the screen.

"Temple tube station, along with half of London." He sounded slightly irritated being surrounded by so many people. He knew that it would be hard to find Silva in this mess.

"Oh, I see. Here you are," Q remarked, scanning security camera footage to find Bond looking directly at one of them.

"I know where I am, Q. Where is he?" He navigated through the people towards the train.

"Just a second, I'm looking for him," came the younger man's voice into Bond's ear. Q kept looking through the security camera footage in hopes of spotting the escaped villain.

Bond stepped into the train to glance around. "There's too many people, I can't see him."

"Welcome to rush hour on the tube. Not something you'd know much about," Q said mildly, eyes still darting back and forth between the screens.

Bond stepped off of the train to hear the announcement being made. There were a few moments of radio silence as Q and Bond both tried to spot the escapee. "Train's leaving. Do I get on the train?" asked Bond, sounding somewhat stressed but still in control.

"Don't get on the train unless he's on it. Give us a minute." Q tapped something into his computer right as the train screeched and began to move.

"Do I get on the train?" Bond asked again, sounding pressed.

Q was examining a feed from the security cameras, focusing it on an officer who was on the train. It was Silva. "Bond?" Q asked tersely.

"What?"

"Get on the train."

Bond actually rolled his eyes before running after the train, which was now moving at a good clip. He ran faster, not letting it pass him completely. Right as it was almost fully into the tunnel, he jumped from the platform and managed to grab onto the back of the train, holding on tightly. He slammed into the glass window on the door and reeled a bit before steadying himself.

"He's keen to get home," said a man on the station witnessing the spectacle.

"Open the door, please," Bond said quickly to the startled woman inside the train, who had been reading the paper. She just looked shocked and made no move to help. "Open the door!" he said louder, enunciating. She reached over and unlatched it, letting Bond into the train. "Health and safety. Carry on," he said professionally as he entered, then crossed the length of the small enclosure and continued on into the rest of the train. People looked at him with confusion as he started walking through towards the front.

Q's voice, stressed, came through the earpiece. "Where are you?"

"Take a wild guess, Q."

"He's in disguise now, he's dressed as a policeman," Q informed him.

"Of course he is." Meanwhile, Silva was doing the same thing as Bond, passing through cars to get to the front.

Q tapped at the laptop in front of him, which zoomed out the screen, displaying a wider view of the tunnel that the train was currently speeding through. "Where is he going? Where is he going?" He asked, half to himself and half to Bond, who looked up at a subway map.

"He's going for M. Tell Tanner, get her out of there." M was currently on tribunal, in the same place that the train was speeding to. It looked as if Silva wanted to get to her. Q sent a message to Tanner, and it popped up on the agent's open laptop. "Silva's escaped," he warned M. "Bond's in pursuit. We need to get you to a secure location immediately, ma'am."

"Like hell I am going to show him my back," M snapped.


	8. Cessation

There was a terse radio silence between the pair of MI6 agents. Bond was trying to catch up to Silva on the train. "Excuse me," he muttered to an unmoving group of people right before the train screeched to a halt. He glimpsed the blond man as he shoved to get out and jumped out as well, in hot pursuit. People shouted and exclaimed angrily as they both pushed their way through. Silva was still farther ahead than Bond was comfortable with, and pushed and shoved people aside as he got into a more open area. When faced with escalators, Silva stood up on the metal divider and jumped, sliding uncontrollably down it. Bond did not hesitate before following. Silva landed ungracefully but Bond managed to hit the ground running, chasing after the man. He lost him after they went through a door into an open area, and Bond made his way through the white tiled corridor. He noticed a door in the wall ajar and went through it, gun at the ready, down a dimly lit passageway with a medal box on the wall. He glanced at it before deciding it controlled the lights. He flipped open the box and threw the switches, and the corridor (which headed down from where he was standing) was illuminated, with Silva's shadow on the far end-running for it. Bond then spotted him climbing a ladder straight up out of the tunnel, and shot at him. One, two, multiple times

"Ow!" Silva yelled, jerking his hand off of the ladder where it had almost been hit. He glanced down at Bond, a dark silhouetted figure in the center of the large underground room, which had probably once been a bustling place.

"I won't miss next time, Mr. Silva." Bond's smooth statement echoed ominously throughout.

"Not bad! Not bad, James, for a physical wreck." Silva looked maniacally happy.

"Why, thank you," he responded, striding closer with his gun drawn.

"You caught me. Now, here's your prize. The latest thing from my local toy store. It's called 'radio'." Silva pressed a button on the radio clipped to his uniform jacket and part of the ceiling blew out and in behind Bond. He was rocked by the explosion, catching himself before he fell and getting away, light from hit wires sparking. "Whoo!" The blond man looked on with strange glee.

Bond lowered his gun and looked at Silva. "I do hope that wasn't for me," he responded, both bravado and sarcasm in his tone.

"No, but that is," Silva replied, grinning in evil excitement. Bond spun to look behind him as a low, ominous rumble sounded from the place of the explosion. It grew until the source of the roar from the hole, still with sparking wires dangling down, revealed itself to be a train fast approaching a fall. Bond ran through one of the stone archways lining the underground chamber and kept running as the train fell, still running and headed for him, through the hole. Bond jumped down into the room as the train nearly missed him. The rest of it just kept coming and coming in his direction, and the spy flattened himself against the floor, gripping his gun. The train barreled through all of the columns in the chamber and just kept going, its momentum too much for the rock which was destroyed when the fast-moving metal ran through it full speed. The train just seemed to go on and on, though its front end eventually hit the solid stone of the wall and came to a shuddering halt. Bond pushed himself off of the ground and up, dust and rubble surrounding him. He knew that Silva had escaped and was on his way to M.

In the tribunal, M spoke as messages from MI6 continued to pop up on Tanner's laptop. He glanced at them but did not interrupt her. There was gunfire outside, as Silva and a few men approached and mindlessly shot the security guards, but it was not audible inside the courtroom. They walked right through the checkpoint and on towards M, who spoke on. "How safe do you feel?" she asked the board facing her.

Meanwhile Bond was running up the stairs from the Underground station as firefighters were running in. He was dusty but still clutching his gun. He looked around for a moment before running through all of the traffic, civilian and fire engines, to get to M at the tribunal before Silva did. He was too late. Silva burst into the room just as M finished reciting a few lines of Tennyson, and the post poetry silence was broken. He pointed his gun at her and Mallory leapt from his seat. Police took aim but Silva and his men took them out, causing screaming panic and a flood of people evacuating the room. Silva had his gun pointed at M again, and took careful aim right before Mallory flung himself in the line of fire instead, pushing M down right as he was hit with the bullet meant for her. He rolled on the floor in pain, clutching his arm.

Outside, Bond was sprinting towards the scene of chaos. Silva and his men were shooting everyone in sight that was trying to get out. Tanner got out from behind a table where he had been hiding and pulled a collapsed and dazed M off of it and down below to safety. Silva and his gang were still firing at everything that moved while Bond approached, walking down the hallway with his gun at the ready. He kicked open the door and immediately shot one of Silva's men. Then he started to shoot at Silva himself, who ducked and returned fire. Bond kicked the dead man's gun to Eve, who was one of the only who had been in attendance still alive, as she had ducked and hid when the shooting began and was now crouching on the ground. She propelled herself up and took aim at Silva, who shot another policeman while Bond was still firing at him. Silva and Bond both remained un-hit, and Bond had to duck to grab another gun when his ran out of ammunition about the same time Silva did. Tanner had hidden behind a doorframe, having gotten out from below the table, and was also firing. There was confusion, and it looked as if Silva was trying to escape. Bond looked at Tanner and made eye contact, and without words got him to stop firing. He glanced at the fire extinguishers in the room to reveal his plan before shooting the two closest to him, in an effort to add to the confusion. Bond confidently strode across the room, shooting almost blindly in Silva's general direction. He stood and returned fire as everyone else was hiding behind or underneath the tables. Eve still had her arm above one and was shooting as soon as Bond passed her. The foam of the fire extinguishers made it difficult to see, and Silva walked out. Eve noticed and pulled some other lucky survivors from underneath the tables, yelling at them to go.

Bond got out of the building just seconds too late, as Silva drove off in a police car. Tanner helped M into her unmarked car and it sped off without him, in the opposite direction of all the police vehicles descending on the scene. Little did he know, Bond was driving.

"007, what the hell are we doing?" M snapped, pulling on her seat belt as Bond glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "Are you kidnapping me?"

"That would be one way of looking at it," Bond answered.

M looked out of the window in a stubborn silence. She spoke up. "Too many people are dying because of me."

"If he wants you, he's gonna have to come and get you. We've been one step behind Silva from the start. It's time to get out in front and change the game." He sounded calm and confident- classic Bond.

"And I'm to be the bait?" she asked, wanting to find flaw in his plan. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror again, and she looked right back. He held his gaze for longer than was probably safe.. "Alright, just us. No one else."

Bond touched his ear to turn on his earpiece. "Q, I need help."

The young Quartermaster was at his laptop, looking at the big center screen. He never seemed to sit down. "I'm tracking the car, where are you going?" Q had much more emotion in his voice than usual. It was concern with an edge of anxiety, and it sounded higher than usual. He spoke a bit too quickly.

"I've got M. We're about to disappear," Bond said with a smirk in his voice.

"What?" Q responded, narrowing his eyes at the screen though 007 couldn't see him.

"I need you to lay a trail of breadcrumbs impossible to follow for anyone except Silva. Think you can do it?" His sentences and words were strung together as if there was no space behind them. It was more of a command than a request, and Bond knew the younger agent, though less experienced, would pick up on it, and most of all trust him.

Q glanced over his shoulder in a paranoid fashion, and then leant in, putting his weight on his palms which rested on the desk. The tone of his voice was more hushed and confidential. "I'm guessing this isn't strictly official."  
"Not even remotely," replied the older agent nonchalantly. He actually smiled.

'"So much for my promising career in espionage," the Quartermaster said dryly, raising his Scrabble mug and taking a draught.

Bond and M were on their way, now in the pitch-black night, as Q tried to figure out the trail with Tanner's occasional commentary. He tapped along as the other man, sporting a bald spot, took a swig of beer to calm his nerves.

"It's a fine line. If the breadcrumb's too small, then he might miss it. Too big, and Silva will smell a rat," monologue-d the darker-haired man as a map of the UK on the center screen (the smaller four surrounding it off, as it was night, everyone else had gone home, and they were no longer needed) responded to his keystrokes.

"Yes, but you'd think even Silva will be able to spot that." Tanner said, looked rather concerned even after the beer.

"He's the only one who could," replied Q with a rather affectionate smirk.

Tanner turned at the sound of footsteps. "Sir," he said, looking like all of his nerves had just risen from his stomach into his throat.

Q spun, looking a bit like a deer in headlights. "Oh."

"What are you doing?" asked Mallory, _sans_ his suit jacket plus a sling on the arm that had been hit. He looked quite intimidating for a man with a bullet wound.

"We're just….monitoring," Q stumbled a bit on "monitoring," coming out with a sound like "monitor…ing."

"Creating a false tracking signal for Silva to follow," countered Mallory with a knowing half smile.

"Well, sir, um…" Tanner started.

"Well, no…" Q said at the same time.

"Excellent thinking, get him isolated. Send him on the A9, it's a direct route, you can monitor his progress more accurately and confirm it with the traffic cameras." Both Q and Tanner looked thoroughly surprised with this statement.

"But, uh…what if the PM finds out?" asked Q, looking down a bit. It probably would have been a bit over-the-glasses scrutinizing look if they didn't sit so high on the bridge of his nose.

"Then we're all buggered. Carry on," Mallory muttered, nodded in respect, and left.

Q looked back to Tanner, gave the glance equivalent of a shrug, then turned back to the map, now focused on Scotland.

That had been Q's last involvement in Skyfall.

Skyfall was over, and MI6 had been rocked to hell. The new M was very different and being under his leadership was still something that so many agents had to get used to. Q was still scrambling to clean up the mess that Silva had made, and he'd been hard-pressed in the last few weeks to find something that worked, and quickly. The security of the agency had been compromised and getting it back up and running was no small task. He had to simultaneously rid the system of flaws from the bottom up and get all of the computers and information back up and running. The agency was crippled without its security, and agents out on field missions were stranded without their handlers. Q had good, intelligent operatives at his disposal, and he utilized all of their talents in rebuilding the technology side of the intelligence agency. Given the fact that they were still somewhat disorganized after the destruction of headquarters, putting it all back together was a mess. The Quartermaster managed somehow to get it all going at a pretty steady rate while he went over the agency's old security with a fine toothed comb, making note of every error he found. There were hardly any, but the ones that existed needed to be eliminated. He did much of the reworking of it himself, leaving the more structured and less boring work to his employees.

While Q division frequently worked through the night to keep MI6 secure, business went on as usual. He spent his days handling his assigned agent. Bond had accepted a mission immediately afterwards and had been sent on assignment to New Zealand in an attempt to track down and gather information from and about an assassin who was planning to target a member of Parliament. Between keeping him alive and trying to fix up MI6, the young man often went a few days at a time running only on Earl Grey (though no one knew if he spiked it or not) and adrenaline. He did go home to change and shower, as well as acquire a new supply of tea, though at odd times. He would often clock out at two in the morning and be back by quarter to four. Bond was back from New Zealand within three weeks, and entered the agency in the afternoon (after a change, shower and shave at his hotel room- he had no flat yet) for a debrief.

Though it seemed unlikely, Bond had managed to retain a couple of the gadgets that he had been given upon departure. Not Quartermaster specials, unfortunately, but from the stockroom. He still held some small measure of pride in returning them unscathed, though, and decided to stop by Q's office himself after debriefing.

What met him there was totally unexpected. Bond knocked only to find that there was no answer, but the door had been left a bit ajar. He glanced around before pushing the door open with the palm of his hand to absolute silence. He opened it all the way to find a surprising, yet amusing sight. The wavy-haired young man, still dressed for the day in a sharp navy cardigan had fallen asleep at his desk, his head on one arm which lay on the desk. He was breathing quietly and slowly, obviously out for the count. A few empty mugs of tea littered the office space, with one not six inches from the man's head. His computer was on and casting a pasty glow onto his pale skin. Bond knew better than to touch it, and briefly contemplated leaving his weapons before deciding to let sleeping dogs lie. He would get his moment of pride later. He quietly exited the room and closed the door completely, letting the lock click into place before walking off for his debrief.


	9. Research and Development

Q woke up from his inopportune doze only about an hour after Bond had entered, left, and locked his door. He noticed what a mess he was in and decided to go home to get a much-deserved shower and some time to himself. He did notice that his door was locked, which he did not remember doing, and vaguely wondered what could have caused it before taking his leave. As soon as he returned, not three hours later, he encountered Bond on his way to Q division. "What's going on?" he asked mildly. "Another mission so soon?"

"The opposite." Bond handed the Quartermaster one of the black lockboxes that he was so fond of. "It's all there."

"Bullshit," he said in the same mild tone, not even bothering to open the box. He half wished he had his Scrabble mug so he could take a drink and glance at Bond over the raised cup in a sort of casual 'that's crap' glance. He had nearly perfected it by now.

The field agent raised an eyebrow. "Open it."

He lifted the lid on its small silent hinges and glanced inside. Nestled in the box were all of his precious gadgets. "Hmm. Which one of my employees did you buy this off of?"

"None of them." Bond looked slightly amused. Miffed possibly, but Q had only really seen _miffed_ on the faces of proper old British ladies when he didn't raise his pinkies for tea. He retaliated with a slightly over-the-glasses scanning-for-lies glance, and found a revered, deadly spy with a completely innocent face. A professional liar. He did not take Bond's word for it and instead headed back to his office to check out the weapons that had apparently made it back unscathed. They checked out, much to his initial disbelief.

"I expect this from now on, 007," he told him in a very kindergarten-teacher tone, half serious.

"Don't get your hopes up," replied the agent from the doorframe. Q chuckled. There was a moment of quiet between them as each did a bit of sizing up the other.

Q broke the silence. "Take a picture, it'll last longer," he commented, this time actually having a mug on hand to do the glance-over-the-drink look.

Bond cracked a smile. "I've got time, actually. The rest of the Double 0 section picked up my assignment while I was away."

"I'm not letting you in to anything," Q stated. A bored field agent was never a good idea.

"I think I'm going to go shoot. Want to try your hand?" he smiled a rather sinister smile.

"I've been meaning to learn, actually." Q responded to his sarcasm directly, being serious. He wanted to see if Bond would call his own bluff or take him up on the offer.

The agent didn't even hesitate. "Think you can tear yourself away from the computer for that long?"

"Try me."

Bond thought that Q wouldn't be able to handle the weapons with such grace. Clearly he had underestimated how well you got to know a gun when one took it apart, modified it, and put it back together until they were satisfied. He picked a smaller weapon with minimal kick to begin learning, and obviously knew all the safety protocols of MI6's shooting range, starting with eye protection and donning a bulletproof vest as an afterthought, with the required ear protection somewhere in between. Bond scanned his choices with a practiced ease, taking one of the Walthers from storage and then opened up the firing range.

He spent the next hour and a half just teaching the Quartermaster the very basics of shooting. Bond then showed him how to properly care for and load/unload a gun. The newcomer fired no shots for at least two and a half hours. Q admired his thorough manner and paid close attention. When he first began firing, it took him a good ten tries to actually get the bullets within ten feet of the target. To his credit, Bond didn't laugh, even when the brunet screwed up royally. He got better with time, though, and within a handful of hours was hitting at least around the shoulder area pretty consistently.

"Now you have to learn to aim." Bond aimed right at the head of the paper target and put a bullet right through the front of its face. Q watched him closely. He was relaxed, yet the traces of a rigid stance showed.

"You're not using a sight, so there's nothing to look through." He began to explain. "Find your target. Now look directly at it. Go for the heart this time, not the shoulder." He stepped behind Q and helped the younger agent line up his shot. He started with just positioning his student's arm, but then got right behind him to fine-tune his aim. Q felt 007's body heat against his back and shoulders as he was just centimeters away. He froze, knowing with icy clarity that the man a fraction of a second from his throat was a trained killer. Bond chuckled in a rather lighthearted way. "Relax, I'm not the one shooting."

He tried to relax, and 007 put a hand on his arm. He seemed to generate a lot more heat than Q did. Q let himself relax into Bond's grip and started breathing slowly, focusing on the target and keeping his arm steady. Bond adjusted Q's aim just a bit and backed up. The younger agent suddenly felt rather cold, and it was an odd thought. He dismissed it and slowly squeezed the trigger as he had been instructed, rather than just pulling hard. He braced himself for the kick and felt a sore shoulder coming later as the almost familiar feeling of the shot jolted his arm, and the shot ended up only a few centimeters from the heart area. Q smiled a bit and lowered his arm, only to feel Bond's hand on his elbow again.

"You did it once, now do it again. This time, you'll hit what you're aiming for. Look right at it." Q obeyed him, raising his arm again and dispelling the nervous shakes that had come the first time he had shot again, really only a few hours previously. His next shot cleanly hit his target, leaving a hole where the target's heart would have been. He found himself smiling a bit more and clicking on the safety of the weapon before relaxing somewhat and lowering his arm, not realizing how close behind him the older agent was. He made a lot of contact with the blond man before quickly straightening up, almost putting himself off balance. He contained a nervous chuckle. "How was that?" he asked, trying to keep some air of professionalism in his voice.

"Not bad, for a beginner." His tone was intentionally neutral. "Now do it until you can hit your target consistently." Q followed his advice, but ended up a good ten centimeters or so off every time. He was a bit distracted by the man behind him, and kept wanting his guidance, which had been sure and steady. He dispelled the thought and continued to try, though none were as good as the first or second shots. He chalked it up to beginner's luck, disregarding any other theories, and tried again and again before Bond's voice interrupted him yet again.

"You're losing your aim." He reached forward again to adjust Q's arm, keeping it straight and still. The Quartermaster had not even noticed the tremor in his arm before it was stilled by Bond's hand. He was frustrated with himself.

"You're just starting. Don't give up before you start," he stated. It was sound advice, and the younger man tried to take it to heart. "Now look at what you're shooting at. Focus on it. And never inhale when you shoot. Inhale, aim. Exhale, fire. Try your luck."

Q lined up the shot and focused, though it was hard with the nearly inhuman heat radiating against his back. The blond agent wasn't even that close to him anymore, but he apparently generated enough heat for both of them. He kept his arm still and inhaled, aiming directly at the heart of the target which his bullet had gone through once before. He exhaled slowly and pulled the trigger, making sure not to lose his arm in the recoil of the gun. He had done that a few times at the very beginning to disastrous results and almost a broken nose on Bond's part. To Q's credit, he kept it pretty straight this time, and the bullet nearly went through the very hole he'd made before. He smiled, feeling a bit more accomplished.

"Good," the other agent said, stepping to Q's side. "You can aim fairly well. You just have to keep it consistent." Bond picked up the Walther he so favored and stood near Q , shooting the head of the target in the same place for two, three, four shots. "You try. Aim for the chest area, and try for three shots in the same place. Don't aim for one, aim for three."

Q tore his eyes off the older agent, who looked deadly, relaxed, and poised, and looked at his own target, raising the gun and squeezing off three shots in rapid succession. They all ended up in the same general area, and he was quite pleased with himself. Making progress quickly sounded good to him. He kept shooting as per 007's directions, and may have intentionally lost his aim or not prepared for the recoil more than once so he could have Bond instructing again, so close to him and so sure of himself. He tried not to think about what that meant, pushing thoughts out of his mind and trying again. There was a certain magnetism about the Double 0 agent, and Q thought he realized why he ended up off track with so many women. It became harder and harder to keep his mind on the task at hand. His hand began to waver and Bond signaled for him to stop.

"Something else on your mind?" He put down his weapon.

Q tried his best to look composed but he was sure that something would give him away. Maybe it would be the pupils that he feared were blown or the color that he suddenly was afraid would appear high on his cheekbones.

"I think I'll call it a day," he said, pulling off his protective gear after engaging the safety on his weapon and unloading it.

"You've made good progress. Though you do need to work on keeping your arm steady when you shoot." 007 also put away his gun and started to lock down the firing range.

"I think I need a drink," Q said mostly to himself. He wasn't talking about tea, either. The job was catching up to him and he wanted to relax somewhat, maybe casually forget a couple of hours.

"You sure you're old enough?" Bond asked in jest.

"You sure you're fit enough to be out in the field? Silva's not the only one who knows that your test results were falsified." That seemed to be a bit of a low blow, but Q was on edge.

Bond responded with the shadow of a smile. "I could use a drink too." He checked his watch. "It's two in the morning. Probably not much luck finding someplace decent open at this hour."

Q sighed and resigned himself to thinking about decaf tea. "Have you even gotten a flat yet?" he asked, straightening his rumpled work shirt and cardigan, and adjusting his tie.

"No, not yet. Currently living out of one of the hotels in the area on the agency's dime. It's not my problem."

He nodded and covered a yawn. "I'm probably just going to head home and sleep. I'm not eighteen anymore. No use in drinking now, really."

"What's the point of working for a spy agency if you can't have the glamour of it?" Bond asked half jokingly. "When I was 'dead,' the locals once dared me to take a shot of liquor with a mad scorpion on the back of my hand."

Q subconsciously glanced at Bond's hands. No visible scarring on the backs, he noted. "It didn't sting you."

"No. I knew it wouldn't," he said casually. "It was entertaining, though. I'm good at drinking."

They ended up at the small restaurant/bar attached to Bond's hotel even after Q had tried to refuse a few times. The next day (or that day, technically) was a Saturday and he figured that he wouldn't be doing much then anyway. All that had to be completed now were updates of the system which other agents from Q division could quite easily do. He made a mental note to message one of his faithful underlings to start on it tomorrow morning. Knowing them, at least a handful would be in bright and early on Saturday, as Q also usually was. It seemed as if he were about to break the tradition.

The bartender seemed to know Bond well enough already (as he'd been staying there for a while on MI6's money) and served up the usual vodka martini _shaken-not-stirred _without so much as a word between the two. Q contemplated his choices for a moment before bracing himself mentally.

"I'll have the same, actually," he said smoothly. He wasn't a heavy drinker and hardly knew his tolerance for alcohol, but this did not seem like the time to look like more of a lightweight than he already was in front of Bond. The blond agent gave him a glance which might have been a mixture between incredulousness and the exasperated look of one observing undeniable stupidity. He had screwed up enough already tonight, and did not want to make himself look stupid more than was actually necessary. He did a lot of staring into his drink while Bond started on his. He looked in place but by no means relaxed, and even so a knife without motion is still lethal. Q did more analyzing than talking, a method he'd found to work well. After a few minutes of unbroken silence, complete with the bartender leaving, Q picked up his drink and took a sip. He did not recall ever having drunk anything from a martini glass before, let alone a Bond signature martini. It burned going down as if he'd lit a match and held it close but not quite to his flesh. It was an interesting kind of burn and he decided he liked it a bit more than it hurt. One sip turned into another, and he downed approximately a quarter of the mixture in the time it took the blond agent to finish his and ring the obnoxious little bell for another. The noise sounded louder than usual to him, and he shook his head a bit as though that would get rid of it. The sound of the bartender shaking Bond's next drink was much louder than expected. Q deduced that the alcohol was affecting him somewhat already, but didn't stop. Why waste a perfectly good martini?


	10. Field Testing

Finishing the martini turned out to be a very bad idea. Q turned out to be just as much of a lightweight as Bond expected. He giggled infrequently but giggled nonetheless. It was rather amusing to watch. Bond was on his second martini in two hours but was taking it more slowly this time, sipping only when the burn from the last drink was completely gone. He didn't let Q order another yet. He wanted to give the thin man some time to metabolize the drink before he put any more into his system. Bond was doubtful that the man had even touched vodka before, let alone drunk something of 80 proof or higher. Judging by his much more amiable attitude and random little smiles this was definitely his first verge into the world of the martini.

Bond was halfway through his second drink before he realized that he had no conception whatsoever of where the younger man lived. He was almost completely anonymous, with "Quartermaster" being his only real identifier. He had much less to go on than he had realized, and he wasn't about to contact M at five in the morning asking where the new Quartermaster lived. That would come off as not only unprofessional, but somewhat creepy if he provided no context. And he sure as hell wasn't going to be providing context.

"James," said his current drinking partner, snapping the older agent out of his train of thought. He noticed that the brunet was blushing more than just a little. Hell, the kid was pale, and the red stain on his cheeks showed up in high contrast. He barely even registered the use of his first name. Usually only the women he slept with, be it for fun or information, used his first name. MI6 referred to him as 007, M and certain other agents as Bond, but 'James' came up very infrequently. "Tell me what you're thinking about."

Q seemed to want to get into his head no matter how intoxicated he was. It made Bond wonder. What was so fascinating about him? He was roughly the same man as he appeared to be. The man sitting next to him was more of a puzzle.

"No," he replied succinctly, glancing over at the asker. "Why do you want to know?"

"You always seem to be thinking about something fascinating, but you don't talk very much." He did state the obvious, but in his defense he was somewhat drunk.

"You, on the other hand, say exactly what you think. You do enough talking for both of us." Bond did find it true.

He reacted as if the other agent had just said something extremely funny and started to shake a little with contained laughter before a couple of little laughs escaped the hand he had thrown over his mouth. Bond smiled at him and recognized that Q was drunk enough now for him to slip something into the brunet's drink without him noticing. When he started to demand another martini because "I like the way it feels when it goes down…it's warm but not…burning warm. It's rather pleasant like when you get under the blankets when it's cold but it gets too hot under the blankets and you stay anyway," Bond asked for a glass of water and for the younger agent's drink to be only half full. The bartender just shrugged and did as they were told, giving Bond the two glasses.

Q, meanwhile, was a bit of a possessive drunk. He had gotten off the bar stool and was randomly collecting things which appealed to him. There were a few corks in his hand along with one of those little plastic toothpicks that looked like a sword, and a cocktail napkin in an apparently fascinating shade of burgundy. The blond agent would occasionally hear something along the lines of "Oh, that's interesting…I want it….It's mine."

Bond decided that the brunet had drunk enough and set about diluting his drink with the water he had asked for. Q, engrossed in all of the fascinating colors around him, paid absolutely no notice. He at one point stumbled upon an American quarter, and gleefully added it to a tiny pile, which had begun at his place at the bar. He counted the ridges around the rim a few times in apparent fascination for the currency, and would take a sip of his martini every time he had to start over. It was going fast, and Bond's water glass had just about run out. When Q noticed that his martini glass was empty, he looked over at Bond with those big pale eyes of his, then looked at the other agent's undiluted drink. He slowly reached over to where the older agent had his drink and started to slowly unwrap the man's fingers from around the stem of the glass. "I want more. Please."

007 found himself in absolutely no position to refuse. He was slightly intoxicated himself, and found the actions of the wavy-haired man somewhat adorable. He let his fingers be unwrapped by Q's slim ones and the drink was swiftly stolen from his grip and slid over to the little pile. "Mine," he said quietly. The now-drunk man seemed to have very little (if any) of a filter between his mind and his mouth. This constantly amused Bond, and he liked seeing the less professional side of the man. Even genii had their down time. Q took a drink from the glass, which he admired in the dim lighting of the bar. He made a small noise of surprise, as it was a lot more alcohol than his last few drinks had been.

Q was thoroughly enjoying this outing. His very calm and collected manner had dissipated, and he wasn't exactly thinking clearly in the state he was currently in. He knew he was enjoying himself, though, because he felt his cheeks burn and an urge to giggle when he glanced over at the man next to him. That felt like happiness. There was also interest when there was a particularly nice color lying around. He particularly enjoyed the color burgundy and found some nice-looking wine corks and one napkin in that color which he intended to keep. He kept looking over at the field agent next to him, though. Burgundy was nice but Q though the man was nicer looking, especially the smile in his eyes when they made eye contact. He smiled and laughed a little, tugging on the man's sleeve. He was still coherent enough to form ideas and sentences when he put his mind to it, but his errant thoughts were rather loopy. "James, what are we going to do?"

The other man simply quirked an eyebrow in response. Q glanced at the clock and spent a very long time looking at the hands and attempting to figure out the time.

"It's almost six in the morning," he pointed out, making a bit of a pouty face. "Where should we go?"

"This is a hotel," he pointed out. "And I do have a room, on the eighth floor."

"Oh, good," he said brightly, smiling. "Let's go there, then. The burning drink is all done."

Bond had long since figured that he wasn't taking the man home in this state. He had next to no tolerance for alcohol and was wasted already. He would have a hard time finding the sink, let alone spending the night by himself without causing major bodily harm. He left his room number and a generous tip for the bartender before pocketing Q's little pile of stuff and leading the way to the bank of elevators, which the younger man was very interested in. Bond pressed the up button and soon they were on their way. He could have sworn he heard the brunet mutter "_My_ secret agent" as he was dragged into the elevator with a stupid smile on his face, holding onto the sleeve of Bond's jacket. He seemed a bit drowsy suddenly and ended up leaning onto the agent's shoulder, his head tucked into the crook between the blond's shoulder and neck. When the elevator began to rise he looked a little startled and raised his head, pressed tightly against Bond's front.

"James…" he said in interest. Bond could have sworn that the brown-haired man was looking straight through him with those pale eyes of his.

"Got a question for me?" he asked with the same tone.

"Not exactly," he replied, slurring his words a bit. His words may be a little loopy, but he managed to stay surprisingly coherent for being so intoxicated. "Maybe something else."

"What would that be?" he asked, amused.

Q straightened up a bit so he was eye-to-eye with the blond agent and then kissed him. It wasn't a particularly sensual kiss, or captivating, but he liked it and decided to continue on with it. There wasn't a lot he would have stopped for, but running out of air was one of them. It was a good minute or so before he actually had to breathe and pulled away to do so.

Bond looked rather startled. Well, he looked mildly surprised and that was as much as Q was going to get. He'd been kissed by a grand number of attractive women in the line of duty but men were much more scarce. He'd only had three or four over the past few years. It was a rare and somewhat different experienced. Bond had never denied enjoying it just as much with men, if not more on occasion. They tended to be more physical and he'd had some very interesting acrobatic sex with one once. Never in an elevator, though. He realized that he'd blanked out momentarily to think when another kiss from Q brought him back from space. He enjoyed it this time, responding a bit and putting his arms around the man's waist to keep him from teetering backwards. He tried to convince himself that the intimate gesture was only occurring because the other party was rather drunk. He probably would have let Q balance on his own if he weren't drunk, or at least that's what Bond told himself. He didn't stop to think that this would probably never happen if both of their inhibitions were less present than usual, Q's especially so. The intoxicated man in question ended up against the elevator wall as Bond took more control. The physical side of sex was easy for him, and came quickly no matter what situation he was in. Bond didn't even stop to think that the attractive man he had currently pressed against the wall of an elevator was technically his superior and had probably never had sex before.

That changed when Q made a surprised noise, startled at the fact that Bond had quickly entered teeth into the equation. The brunet was currently having his bottom lip bitten and responding rather suggestively, if the buckle of his knees and hot blush had anything to do with it. He pressed himself even more tightly against 007, responding with a nip of his own to the line of Bond's jaw where blond stubble made his skin seem rough. Bond tipped up the brunet's chin and kissed the pulse point underneath, making Q gasp and his breath hitch. He appreciated that noise and started to suck on it before beginning to bite, aiming to leave a very obvious mark.

"_My_ little Quartermaster," he growled, leaving bites all over, especially on the younger man's exposed neck. It was the primal sign of submission, and the more animalistic side of Bond enjoyed it very much. Q gasped and writhed beneath him, green eyes fluttering shut, occasionally opening up wide when Bond did something particularly interesting.

The elevator reached their floor far too quickly and the loud ding silenced the gasping breaths and occasional moans. Bond pulled Q out of the elevator, and he stumbled obediently along, still not breathing regularly. Bond shoved the key in the slot and the door opened silently, admitting the two men who quickly continued their interrupted activity. Q's cardigan was quickly disposed of, ending up right on top of Bond's suit jacket, which had been casually tossed over a chair. A few buttons ended up on the ground as both worked on their Oxfords. Q got a little frustrated and pulled Bond in before he was even half done. They met in a rough, bruising kiss, with Q's slim and graceful fingers undoing the other agent's belt and zipper. He found Bond's sizeable bulge underneath the sharp black dress pants and teased him, running his fingertips over him through the fine silk boxers that the Double 0 agent favored. Bond let out a noise somewhere between a growl and a moan, and quickly had Q down to his light gray boxers, his ripped open shirt, and his tie, which never quite made it off. His glasses were still balanced rather precariously on his nose and Q kept them, wanting to see what was going on in explicit detail. Bond was being forceful in his rough, dominant kisses and quickly had Q falling back onto the bed with a soft gasp of surprise as he was suddenly spread out and vulnerable to whatever Bond wanted to do. Said man climbed on top of him, an intimidating figure, and it turned the green-eyed man on to no end. He had never before realized how much he wanted this, and the roughness and swiftness with which it was happening just made it all the more real.

Q choked on a moan as Bond's calloused hand ran over his cock, which strained against the gray material of his boxers. Needless to say, it took Bond very little time to rip them off, before denying Q the skin on skin contact. He had a very self satisfied smirk on his face as the thin man arched his back and whined, begging for his touch again. He reached up and buried his fingers in the short blond hair, pulling Bond down for another kiss that was open-mouthed and needy as the boundaries between them started to blur. When Bond pulled away Q took the moment to enjoy the sight of him, on display but in a very dominant way. He ran his fingertips down 007's chest, marveling at the very firm muscles of his abdomen, and smiling at the coarse blond hair leading from his navel down to underneath his silk boxers. He trailed his hand down it, teasing the waistband of Bond's boxers down while the older man went to work on his neck again. Q moaned quietly as Bond kissed a spot on which he'd left a red mark and very sensitive skin. His fingers twitched as he arched his back, making little pleased noises, which got more and more desperate. As soon as the blond man turned his attention away from Q's neck, the brunet quickly yanked down Bond's boxers, trailing one slim finger up his length, which made the agent above him involuntarily jerk his hips, his cock rising even father, almost brushing his stomach. Q smirked, then moaned rather loudly as Bond bit and kissed at his collarbone, especially that incredibly sensitive place where his neck met his pale shoulder.

The heat between them was heavy and the tension almost palpable, the space between them becoming smaller as Bond lowered himself mostly onto Q, their skin becoming flush. Q let out a low continuous moan from the second their cocks touched to when Bond's weight was almost fully on him, the heaviness welcome and pinning him to the bed. Somehow the knowledge that he couldn't get away, that he was completely surrounded by his blond spy was making him more and more aroused. Bond groaned as his cock brushed the younger man's, wanting to take him right then and there but knowing that he should drag it out as much as possible. He lifted himself up slightly to kiss the flatter planes of Q's abdomen, which made him arch his back as much as he could, wanting stimulation. He set himself back down again, making a smooth rolling motion with his hips to make their cocks brush each other slowly. Q let out a choked moan, anticipating what would come next.


End file.
